High-dimensionality ¹³C direct-detected NMR experiments for the automatic assignment of intrinsically disordered proteins

Wolfgang Bermel, Isabella C. Felli, Leonardo Gonelli, Wiktor Koźmiński, Alessandro Piai, Roberta Pierratelli, Anna Zawadzka-Kazimierczuk

We present three novel exclusively heteronuclear 5D ¹³C direct-detected NMR experiments, namely (H^N-flipN)CONCACON, (HCA)CONCACON and (H)CACON(CA)CON, designed for easy sequence-specific resonance assignment of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). The experiments proposed have been optimized to overcome the drawbacks which may dramatically complicate the characterization of IDPs by NMR, namely the small dispersion of chemical shifts and the fast exchange of the amide protons with the solvent. A fast and reliable automatic assignment of α-synuclein chemical shifts was obtained with the Tool for SMFT-based Assignment of Resonances (TSAR) program based on the information provided by these experiments.