Resolution in Cryogenic Solid State NMR: Challenges and Solutions.

NMR at cryogenic temperatures has the potential to provide rich site-specific details regarding biopolymer structure, function, and mechanistic intermediates. Broad spectral lines compared with room temperature NMR can sometimes present practical challenges. A number of hypotheses regarding the origins of line broadening are explored. One frequently considered explanation is the presence of inhomogeneous conformational distributions. Possibly these arise when the facile characteristic motions that occur near room temperature become dramatically slower or "frozen out" at temperatures below the solvent phase change. Recent studies of low temperature spectra harness the distributions in properties in these low temperature spectra to uncover information regarding the conformational ensembles that drive biological function. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.