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<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> The first report of dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) in liquids via the solid-effect mechanism [Erb, Motchane and Uebersfeld, <em>Compt. rend.</em> <strong>246</strong>, 2121 (1958)] drew attention to the similarity between the field profile of the enhancement and the dispersive component of the EPR line. The implications of this similarity, however, were not pursued subsequently as practically at the same time Abragam explained the effect in terms of state mixing by the dipolar interaction. Here we develop a description of the solid effect which is grounded in the dynamics of the electron-nucleus spin system, rather than the static view of state mixing. Our approach highlights the role of the coherences in the polarization transfer, and shows that the offset dependence of the DNP enhancement can be rationalized as the response of two band-pass filters connected in series. The first filter is the power-broadened EPR line; the second filter consists of two parts centered on both sides of the electronic resonance and displaced by one nuclear Larmor frequency from it. Being proportional to the product of the two filters, the DNP enhancement profile acquires its odd symmetry from the dispersive EPR line, as intuited by Erb et al. and in agreement with their phenomenological treatment. The developed time-domain description of the solid effect is extendable to liquids where the dipolar interaction changes randomly in time due to molecular diffusion.

In spite of its name, the solid effect of dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is also operative in viscous liquids, where the dipolar interaction between the polarized nuclear spins and the polarizing electrons is not completely averaged out by molecular diffusion on the timescale of the electronic spin-spin relaxation time. Under such slow-motional conditions, it is likely that the tumbling of the polarizing agent is similarly too slow to efficiently average the anisotropies of its magnetic tensors on the timescale of the electronic . Here we extend our previous analysis of the solid effect in liquids to account for the effect of -tensor anisotropy at high magnetic fields. Building directly on the mathematical treatment of slow tumbling in electron spin resonance , we calculate solid-effect DNP enhancements in the presence of both translational diffusion of the liquid molecules and rotational diffusion of the polarizing agent. To illustrate the formalism, we analyze high-field (9.4 T) DNP enhancement profiles from nitroxide-labeled lipids in fluid lipid bilayers. By properly accounting for power broadening and motional broadening, we successfully decompose the measured DNP enhancements into their separate contributions from the solid and Overhauser effects.

Solid Effect DNP in a Rapid-melt setup

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) combined with high magnetic fields and fast magic angle spinning (MAS) has opened up a new avenue for the application of exceptionally sensitive 1H NMR detection schemes to study protonated solids. Recently, it has been shown that DNP experiments at fast MAS rates lead to slower spin diffusion and hence reduced DNP enhancements for impregnated materials. However, DNP enhancements alone do not determine the overall sensitivity of a NMR experiment. Here we measure the overall sensitivity of one-dimensional 1H detected relayed DNP experiments as a function of the MAS rate in the 20–60 kHz regime using 0.7 mm diameter rotors at 21.2 T. Although faster MAS rates are detrimental for the DNP enhancement on the target material, due to slower spin diffusion, we find that with increasing spinning rates the gain in sensitivity due to 1H line-narrowing and the folding-in of sideband intensity compensates a large part of the loss of overall hyperpolarization. We find that sensitivity depends on the atomic site in the molecule, and is maximised at between 40 and 50 kHz MAS for the sample of L-histidine.HCl·H2O studied here. There is a 10–20 % difference in sensitivity between the optimum MAS rate and the fastest rate currently accessible (60 kHz).

In a previous communication [Hu et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 10844 (2004)], an approach was demonstrated that improves the efficiency of the cross-effect polarization mechanism employed in high field dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) experiments. Specifically, it was shown that tethering two TEMPO (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-oxyl) radicals increases the electron-electron dipole coupling from approximately 1 MHz in solutions of monomeric TEMPO to approximately 25 MHz in a tethered biradical. The larger coupling resulted in an increase in the DNP enhancements by a factor of approximately 3-4, from 45-50 to approximately 165. Here, a second approach to improving the efficiency of the polarization process is described that involves approximately satisfying the matching condition |omega(2e)-omega(1e)|=omega(n), where omega(2e) and omega(1e) are two frequencies in the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrum and omega(n) is the Larmor frequency of the nuclear spins being polarized. Specifically, in a mixture of TEMPO and trityl [tris (8-carboxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethyl(-d3)-benzo[1,2d:4,5-d']bis(1,3)dithiol-4-yl) methyl] radicals, the intensity maxima in the EPR spectra of these two species are approximately separated by the (1)H NMR frequency. In this case the frequency difference between the g(yy) value of TEMPO and the narrow pseudo-isotropic g-value of trityl is approximately 224 MHz and the (1)H Larmor frequency is 211 MHz. The optimal magnetic field for DNP using the mixtures was found to coincide with the trityl EPR resonance. At 90 K and 5 T, a mixture of 20 mM TEMPO and 20 mM trityl enhanced the (1)H polarization by a factor of approximately 160, an improvement over the enhancement of approximately 50 with 40 mM TEMPO. The reasons for the improvement are discussed and evidence is presented suggesting that DNP enhancement can be improved further by tethering TEMPO and trityl or two similar radicals.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy would be a method of choice to follow biochemical events in cells because it can analyze molecules in complex environments. However, the intrinsically low sensitivity of NMR makes in-cell measurements challenging. Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) has emerged as a method to circumvent this limitation, but most polarizing agents developed for DNP are unstable in reducing cellular environments. Here, we introduce the use of Gd(III)-based DNP polarizing agents for in-cell NMR spectroscopy. Specifically, we show their persistent stability in cellular formulations, and we investigate the DNP performance of the Gd(III)-based complex [Gd(tpatcn)] in human embryonic kidney cell lysates and intact cells. For cell lysates, DNP enhancements up to -27 are obtained on the cellular signals, reproducible even after storage at room temperature for days. Mixing the [Gd(tpatcn)] solution with intact cells enables the observation of cellular signals with DNP, and DNP enhancement factors of about -40 are achieved.

We use microwave-induced dynamic nuclear polarization(DNP) ofthe substitutional nitrogen defects (P1 centers) in diamond to hyperpolarizebulk 13C nuclei in both single crystal and powder samplesat room temperature at 3.34 T. The large (>100-fold) enhancementsdemonstrated correspond to a greater than 10 000-fold improvementin terms of signal averaging of the 1% abundant 13C spins.The DNP was performed using low-power solid state sources under static(nonspinning) conditions. The DNP spectrum (DNP enhancement as a functionof microwave frequency) of diamond powder shows features that broadlycorrelate with the EPR spectrum. A well-defined negative Overhauserpeak and two solid effect peaks are observed for the central (mI = 0) manifold of the 14N spins. Previous low temperature measurements in diamondhad measured a positive Overhauser enhancement in this manifold. Frequency-chirpedmillimeter-wave excitation of the electron spins is seen to significantlyimprove the enhancements for the two outer nuclear spin manifolds(mI = ±1) and to blur some of thesharper features associated with the central manifold. The outer linesare best fit using a combination of the cross effect and the truncatedcross effect, which is known to mimic features of an Overhauser effect.Similar features are also observed in experiments on single crystalsamples. The observation of all of these mechanisms in a single materialsystem under the same experimental conditions is likely due to thesignificant heterogeneity of the high pressure, high temperature (HPHT)type Ib diamond samples used. Large room temperature DNP enhancementsat fields above a few tesla enable spectroscopic studies with betterchemical shift resolution under ambient conditions.

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) employs paramagnetic species to increase the NMR signal of nuclear spins. In liquids, the efficiency of the effect depends on the strength of the interaction between the electron and nuclear spins and the time scales on which this interaction is modulated by the physical motion of the spin-bearing molecules. An approach to quantitatively predict the contribution of molecular motions to the DNP enhancement using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations is developed and illustrated for the nitroxide radical TEMPOL in liquid toluene. A multi-resolution strategy that combines explicit treatment of the solvent at short distances from the free radical with implicit description at large intermolecular distances is adopted. Novel analytical expressions are obtained to correct for the finite spatial extent of the MD simulations. The atomistic and analytical descriptions are sewn seamlessly together by ensuring that for molecular trajectories that start in the near (explicit) region and end in the distant (implicit) region the analytical dipolar spectral densities reproduce the MD estimates. The spectral densities obtained from the developed approach are used to calculate DNP coupling factors separately for the ring and methyl protons of toluene. The agreement with previously reported experimental DNP data at a magnetic field of 3.4 T is noteworthy and encouraging. Maximum obtainable DNP enhancements at other magnetic fields are predicted.

Solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) enables atomic-resolution characterization of the molecular structure and dynamics within complex heterogeneous samples, but it is typically insensitive. Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) increases the NMR signal intensity by orders of magnitude and can be performed in combination with magic angle spinning (MAS) for sensitive, high-resolution spectroscopy. Here we report MAS DNP experiments, for the first time, within intact human cells with >40-fold DNP enhancement and a sample temperature of <6 K. In addition to cryogenic MAS results at <6 K, we also show in-cell DNP enhancements of 57-fold at 90 K. In-cell DNP is demonstrated using biradicals and sterically shielded monoradicals as polarizing agents. A novel trimodal polarizing agent is introduced for DNP, which contains a nitroxide biradical, a targeting peptide for cell penetration, and a fluorophore for subcellular localization with confocal microscopy. The fluorescent polarizing agent provides in-cell DNP enhancements of 63-fold at a concentration of 2.7 mM. These experiments pave the way for structural characterization of biomolecules in an endogenous cellular context.

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In vivo melanoma imaging based on dynamic nuclear polarization enhancement in melanin pigment of living mice using in vivo dynamic nuclear polarization magnetic resonance imaging

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