Hydrogen bonds lengths in nucleic acids estimated from longitudinal nitrogen-15 relaxation

A new NMR method has been designed for the measurement of the longitudinal relaxation rates of both donor and acceptor nitrogen-15 nuclei in Watson-Crick base pairs in 15N-enriched nucleic acids. The expt. was applied to a 22-nucleotide RNA hairpin. The lengths of four hydrogen bonds could be estd. from the longitudinal relaxation rates. [on SciFinder (R)]