Effective strategy to assign 1H-15N heteronuclear correlation NMR signals from lysine side-chain NH3 + groups of proteins at low temperature

Recent studies have shown that lysine side-chain NH₃ ⁺ groups are excellent probes for NMR investigations of dynamics involving hydrogen bonds and ion pairs relevant to protein function. However, due to rapid hydrogen exchange, observation of ¹H-¹⁵N NMR cross peaks from lysine NH₃ ⁺ groups often requires use of a relatively low temperature, which renders difficulty in resonance assignment. Here we present an effective strategy to assign ¹H and ¹⁵N resonances of NH₃ ⁺ groups at low temperatures. This strategy involves two new ¹H/¹³C/¹⁵N triple-resonance experiments for lysine side chains. Application to a protein-DNA complex is demonstrated.