New RF Electronics Console and Probes for 900 Mhz NMR Spectrometer

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

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Abstract

Abstract Funding is requested for the purchase of three essential items that will be used to upgrade a 900 MHz NMR spectrometer: (1) a 900 MHz Bruker NEO spectrometer console, (2) an 15N-direct detection probe to harness the 15N TROSY effect and (3) a magic angle spinning (MAS) probe with a 0.7 mm stator rotor system. The 900 MHz NMR spectrometer was delivered in September, 2005 and is now out of date in many respects. Thus, the new console will offer the following innovations: (1) an increase in sensitivity of 20-30 % mostly for samples for samples that are concentration limited, facilitating experiments at low receiver gain, facilitating experiments in H2O. (2) improved radio frequency spectral purity on both the transmit and receive channels, critical for the band selective TOCSY experiments ; (3) hardware that is compatible with the latest versions of Topspin-4, the Bruker spectrometer operating system; (4) the software has much improved compatibility with non-uniform sampling (NUS) algorithms; (5) transceiver hardware allowing multi-receive features so that it is possible to sample 13C and 15N signals simultaneously; (6) finally, because of the age of our current console, within a year or so we will not be able to purchase spare electronics boards to replace on the current console when they fail. The 15N-detect TROSY probe will be used in exciting new experiments that yield high-resolution spectra of large proteins. The 0.7 mm MAS probe will permit sample spinning at 111 kHz and therefore enabling performance of high-resolution 1H detection MAS experiments on many different biological systems. The new instrumentation will be used in investigations of membrane proteins, amyloid fibrils, large macromolecular complexes, plant cell walls and many other exciting biological problems. The upgraded 900 MHz instrument will be part of a cluster of instrumentation that serves a community of scientist performing high field biological NMR in the Boston area and North America.