Quadrupolar Nuclei in Biological Systems

Abstract

Recent advances in solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methodology and improvement in high‐field NMR instrumentation have generated a new wave of research interests in the application of solid‐state NMR to the study of quadrupolar nuclei in biological systems. These developments now permit increasingly complex biological systems to be probed by direct NMR detection of quadrupolar nuclei. In this article, we describe some recent progress in solid‐state NMR studies of 17 O (S = 5/2), 25 Mg (S = 5/2), 43 Ca (S = 7/2), 67 Zn (S = 5/2), 23 Na (S = 3/2), and 39 K (S = 3/2) nuclei in biological systems with a prognosis for future directions.