Spin Saturation Transfer Difference NMR (SSTD NMR): A New Tool to Obtain Kinetic Parameters of Chemical Exchange Processes

This detailed protocol describes the new Spin Saturation Transfer Difference Nuclear Magnetic Resonance protocol (SSTD NMR), recently developed in our group to study processes of mutual-site chemical exchange that are difficult to analyze by traditional methods. As the name suggests, this method combines the Spin Saturation Transfer method used for small molecules, with the Saturation Transfer Difference (STD) NMR method employed for the study of protein-ligand interactions, by measuring transient spin saturation transfer along increasing saturation times (build-up curves) in small organic and organometallic molecules undergoing chemical exchange.

Advantages of this method over existing ones are: there is no need to reach coalescence of the exchanging signals; the method can be applied as long as one signal of the exchanging sites is isolated; there is no need to measure T₁ or reach steady state saturation; rate constant values are measured directly, and T₁ values are obtained in the same experiment, using only one set of experiments.

To test the method, we have studied the dynamics of the hindered rotation of N,N-dimethylamides, for which much data is available for comparison. The thermodynamic parameters obtained using SSTD are very similar to the reported ones (spin-saturation transfer techniques and line-shape analysis). The method can be applied to more challenging substrates that cannot be studied by previous methods.

We envisage that the simple experimental set up and the wide applicability of the method to a great variety of substrates will make this a common technique amongst organic and organometallic chemists without extensive expertise in NMR.