Resolution and sensitivity of high field nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

The arrival of very high field magnets and cryogenic circuitries, and the development of relaxation-optimized pulse sequences have added powerful tools for increasing sensitivity and resolution in NMR studies of biomacromolecules. The potential of these advances is not fully realized in practice, however, since current experimental protocols do not permit sufficient data sampling for optimal resolution in the indirect dimensions. Here we analyze quantitatively how increasing resolution in indirect dimensions affects the S/N ratio and compare this with currently used sampling routines. Optimal resolution would require sampling up to similar to3R(2)(-1), and the S/N reaches a maximum at similar to1.2R(2)(-1). Currently used data acquisition protocols rarely sample beyond 0.4 R-2(-1), and extending evolution times would result in prohibitively long experiments. We show that a general solution to this problem is to use non-uniform sampling, where only a small subset of data points in the indirect sampling space are measured, and possibly different numbers of transients are collected for different evolution times. Coupled with modern methods of spectrum analysis, this strategy delivers substantially improved resolution and/or reduced measuring times compared to uniform sampling, without compromising sensitivity. Higher resolution in the indirect dimensions will facilitate the use of automated assignment programs.