NMR structure analysis of uniformly 13C-labeled carbohydrates

In this study, a set of nuclear magnetic resonance experiments, some of them commonly used in the study of C-13-labeled proteins and/or nucleic acids, is applied for the structure determination of uniformly C-13-enriched carbohydrates. Two model substances were employed: one compound of low molecular weight [(UL-C-13)-sucrose, 342 Da] and one compound of medium molecular weight (C-13-enriched O-antigenic polysaccharide isolated from Escherichia coli O142, similar to 10 kDa). The first step in this approach involves the assignment of the carbon resonances in each monosaccharide spin system using the anomeric carbon signal as the starting point. The C-13 resonances are traced using C-13-C-13 correlations from homonuclear experiments, such as (H)CC-CT-COSY, (H)CC-NOESY, CC-CT-TOCSY and/or virtually decoupled (H)CC-TOCSY. Based on the assignment of the C-13 resonances, the H-1 chemical shifts are derived in a straightforward manner using one-bond H-1-C-13 correlations from heteronuclear experiments (HC-CT-HSQC). In order to avoid the (1) J (CC) splitting of the C-13 resonances and to improve the resolution, either constant-time (CT) in the indirect dimension or virtual decoupling in the direct dimension were used. The monosaccharide sequence and linkage positions in oligosaccharides were determined using either C-13 or H-1 detected experiments, namely CC-CT-COSY, band-selective (H)CC-TOCSY, HC-CT-HSQC-NOESY or long-range HC-CT-HSQC. However, due to the short T-2 relaxation time associated with larger polysaccharides, the sequential information in the O-antigen polysaccharide from E. coli O142 could only be elucidated using the H-1-detected experiments. Exchanging protons of hydroxyl groups and N-acetyl amides in the C-13-enriched polysaccharide were assigned by using HC-H2BC spectra. The assignment of the N-acetyl groups with N-15 at natural abundance was completed by using HN-SOFAST-HMQC, HNCA, HNCO and C-13-detected (H)CACO spectra.