A National Instrumentation Facility for NMR of Biological Solids

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This proposal requests funds to establish a National Instrumentation Facility for NMR of Biological Solids. New solids NMR techniques will be developed and applied to solve practical and important problems in the biological sciences. The Facility will consist of three existing solids spectrometers, with two more to be built over the next two years. Via collaborative research, new solids NMR experiments to be developed or refined include: 13C-170 double-cross polarization, rotational-echo double resonance, and DANTE-labeled 13C-13C spin diffusion. These experiments will be combined with existing solids NMR techniques to identify cross-links in insect exoskeleton and plant cell walls, to establish the mechanism of drug action on bacterial cell-wall metabolism, to identify binding sites in immobilized enzymes, to measure the dynamics and conformational flexibility within the active sites of enzymes, to measure the mobility of multiple sites in lipid chains in the gel state without specific labeling of the lipids, and to monitor nondescructively the catabolism of drugs, herbicides, and pesticides in mammalian tissue. The principal investigator has a long history of successful biological collaborations, his laboratory has demonstrated an ability to develop new NMR technology, he has accumulated solids NMR spectrometers with capabilities unmatched by any other single laboratory, and the principal investigator has experience in translating results of basic scientific research into useful end products. For these reasons support is recommended.