Assignment of the side-chain 1H and 13C resonances of interleukin-1β using double- and triple-resonance heteronuclear three-dimensional NMR spectroscopy

The assignment of the aliphatic 1H and 13C resonances of IL-1β, a protein of 153 residues and molecular mass 17.4 kDa, is presented by use of a number of novel three-dimensional (3D) heteronuclear NMR experiments which rely on large heteronuclear one-bond J couplings to transfer magnetization and establish through-bond connectivities. These 3D NMR experiments circumvent problems traditionally associated with the application of conventional 2D 1H-1H correlation experiments to proteins of this size, in particular the extensive chemical shift overlap which precludes the interpretation of the spectra and the reduced sensitivity arising from 1H line widths that are often significantly larger than the 1H-1H J couplings. The assignment proceeds in two stages. In the first step the 13Cα chemical shifts are correlated with the NH and 15N chemical shifts by a 3D triple-resonance NH-15N-13Cα (HNCA) correlation experiment which reveals both intraresidue NH(i)-15N(i)-13Cα(i) and some weaker interresidue NH(i)-15N(i)-Cα(i-1) correlations, the former via intraresidue one-bond 1JNCα and the latter via interresidue two-bond 2HNCα couplings. The second step involves the identification of side-chain spin systems by 3D 1H-13C-13C-1H correlated (HCCH-COSY) and 3D 1H-13C-13C-1H total correlated (HCCH-TOCSY) spectroscopy, the latter making use of isotropic mixing of 13C magnetization to obtain relayed connectivities along the side chains. The authors were able to obtain complete 1H and 13C side-chain assignments for all residues, with the exception of 4 (out of a total of 15) lysine residues for which partial assignments were obtained