General information

SwedNMR, Gothenburg University and Dr. Björn Burmann is hosting a Topical Meeting on Large Proteins/MethylNMR March 13th and 14th, 2023 at the Swedish NMR Centre Gothenburg. The scope of the meeting is to better understand both the practical and theoretical aspects of exploitation of the the favourable properties of side-chain methyl groups in proteins and beyond extending the size limit of solution NMR applications. The target group is SwedNMR staff scientists and experts as well as other NMR spectroscopists interested to learn more about this topic.

If you are interested to attend please contact Alexandra Ahlner or Björn Burmann (alexandra.ahlner@liu.se, bjorn.marcus.burmann@gu.se )

Preliminary Schedule

Day 1

11:30 – 12:15 Welcome, introduction and initial round table about the participants aim for the meeting

12:15 –13:30   Lunch Break

13:30 – 14:15 Part I:             Methyl labelling Practical Aspects (Burmann)

• How to label MALVIT methyl groups in coli

• Different pre-cursors for different NMR applications

• Alternative methyl labelling of cysteines, nucleic acids, methylation in general

14:15 – 15:00                          Questions/Round Table

15:00 – 15:30  Coffee Break

15:30 – 16:30  Part II:             NOESY-based approaches (Burmann)

• Different NOESY based experiments for assignment and structural characterization

• SOFAST based experiments vs. standard 3D/4D NOESYs

16:30 – 17:30                         Questions/Round Table

18:00 – 19:00                         Meeting Dinner

Day 2:

8:30 – 9:15                              Automated NOESY assignment approaches (Burmann)

• NOESY based automated assignment approaches (MAUS, MAGIC, methyl-Flya etc.)

• Limitations of methyl-methyl NOEs

9:15 – 9:30                              Questions/Round Table

9:30 – 10:00                            Coffee Break

10:00 –11:00   Part III:            COSY and other through-bond based assignment approaches  (Orekhov?)

• COSY type assignment approaches

• HMBC-HMQC for stereo-selective valine and leucine assignment

11:00 – 11:15                          Questions/Round Table

11:15 – 12.15  Part IVA:         Methyl relaxation (Burmann or Orekhov)

• Fast timescale (side-chain order parameter)

• Deuterium relaxation

• Methyl CPMG

12:15 – 12:30                          Questions/Round Table

12:30 – 13:30                          Lunch Break 

13:30 – 14:30  Part IVB:         Methyl relaxation (Burmann or Orekhov)

• Methyl CEST

• Methyl-ZZ-exchange

14:30 –15:30                           Round Table/Closing

Suggested Literature to read before the meeting

• Schütz, S. & Sprangers, R. Methyl TROSY spectroscopy: A versatile NMR approach to study challenging biological systems. Prog. Nucl. Magn. Reson. Spectrosc. 116, 56–84 (2020).
• Kerfah, R., Plevin, M. J., Sounier, R., Gans, P. & Boisbouvier, J. Methyl-specific isotopic labeling: a molecular tool box for solution NMR studies of large proteins. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 32, 113–122 (2015).
• Boswell, Z. K. & Latham, M. P. Methyl-based NMR spectroscopy Methods for uncovering structural dynamics in large proteins and protein complexes. Biochemistry 58, 144–155 (2019).
• Clay, M. C., Saleh, T., Kamatham, S., Rossi, P. & Kalodimos, C. G. Progress toward automated methyl assignments for methyl-TROSY applications. Structure 30, 69–79 (2022).