3D 13C-13C-13C correlation NMR for de novo distance determination of solid proteins and application to a human α-defensin

The de novo structure of an antimicrobial protein, human α-defensin 1 (HNP-1), is determined by combining a 3D 13C-13C-13C (CCC) magic-angle spinning (MAS) correlation experiment with standard resonance assignment experiments. Using a short spin diffusion mixing time to assign intra-residue cross peaks and a long mixing time to detect inter-residue correlation peaks, we show that the 3D CCC experiment not only reduces the ambiguity of resonance assignment, but more importantly yields two orders of magnitude more long-range distances without recourse to existing crystal structures. Most of these distance constraints could not be obtained in a de novo fashion from 2D correlation spectra due to significant resonance overlap. Combining the distance constraints from the 3D CCC experiment and the chemical-shift-derived torsion angles, we obtained a de novo high-resolution NMR structure of HNP-1, with a heavy-atom RMSD of 3.4 Å from the crystal structure of the analogous HNP-3. The average energy of the minimum-energy ensemble is less than of 40 kcal/mol. Thus, the 3D CCC experiment provides a reliable means of restraining the three-dimensional structure of insoluble proteins with unknown conformations.