A Spin System Labeled and Highly Resolved ed-H(CCO)NH-TOCSY Experiment for the Facilitated Assignment of Proton Side Chains in Partially Deuterated Samples

The introduction of deuterated and partially deuterated protein samples has greatly facilitated the 13C assignment of larger proteins. Here we present a new version of the HC(CO)NH-TOCSY experiment, the ed-H(CCO)NH-TOCSY experiment for partially deuterated samples, introducing a multi-quantum proton evolution period. This approach removes the main relaxation source (the dipolar coupling to the directly bound 13C spin) and leads to a significant reduction of the proton and carbon relaxation rates. Thus, the indirect proton dimension can be acquired with high resolution, combined with a phase labeling of the proton resonances according to the C-C spin system topology. This editing scheme, independent of the CHn multiplicity, allows to distinguish between proton side-chain positions occurring within a narrow chemical shift range. Therefore this new experiment facilitates the assignment of the proton chemical shifts of partially deuterated samples even of high molecular weights, as demonstrated on a 31 kDa protein.