Narrow carbonyl resonances in proton-diluted proteins facilitate NMR assignments in the solid-state.

HNCO/HNCACO type correlation experiments are an alternative for assignment of backbone resonances in extensively deuterated proteins in the solid-state, given the fact that line widths on the order of 14-17 Hz are achieved in the carbonyl dimension without the need of high power decoupling. The achieved resolution demonstrates that MAS solid-state NMR on extensively deuterated proteins is able to compete with solution-state NMR spectroscopy if proteins are investigated with correlation times tau(c) that exceed 25 ns.