Nucleic Acids Studied by NMR Spectroscopy

Abstract

NMR spectroscopy is an efficient technique for the study of nucleic acids. For DNA, assignment strategies based on natural abundance samples are well established and very useful. In the context of RNA with more crowded spectra than DNA, major advances have been made since the advent of in vitro transcription using T7 RNA polymerase in the early 1990s. Dedicated NMR experiments to study 13C and 15N isotope-labeled RNA molecules have appeared, and are appearing, and efficient through-bond strategies exist to assign RNA molecules with sizes up to approximately 50 nucleotides. With increasing sophistication, RNA molecules breaking this limit are now also amenable for NMR studies. As for protein studies, residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) have had an immense impact in the study of nucleic acid structure. Many nucleic acids are extended molecules, and the full potential of RDCs is realized with such molecules. Besides studies of structure, NMR spectroscopy is also a useful technique for studies of dynamics. Several NMR methods exist to this end.