Analytical Instrument Documents

Azoxystrobin (AZ) is a broad-spectrum synthetic fungicide widely used in agriculture globally. However, there are concerns about its fate and effects in the environment. It is reportedly transformed into azoxystrobin acid as a major metabolite by environmental microorganisms. Bacillus licheniformis strain TAB7 is used as a compost deodorant in commercial compost and has been found to degrade some phenolic and agrochemicals compounds. In this article, we report its ability to degrade azoxystrobin by novel degradation pathway. Biotransformation analysis followed by identification by electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (MS), high-resolution MS, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy identified methyl (E)-3-amino-2-(2-((6-(2-cyanophenoxy)pyrimidin-4-yl)oxy)phenyl)acrylate, or (E)-azoxystrobin amine in short, and (Z) isomers of AZ and azoxystrobin amine as the metabolites of (E)-AZ by TAB7. Bioassay testing using Magnaporthe oryzae showed that although 40 μg/mL of (E)-AZ inhibited 59.5 ± 3.5% of the electron transfer activity between mitochondrial Complexes I and III in M. oryzae, the same concentration of (E)-azoxystrobin amine inhibited only 36.7 ± 15.1% of the activity, and a concentration of 80 μg/mL was needed for an inhibition rate of 56.8 ± 7.4%, suggesting that (E)-azoxystrobin amine is less toxic than the parent compound. To our knowledge, this is the first study identifying azoxystrobin amine as a less-toxic metabolite from bacterial AZ degradation and reporting on the enzymatic isomerization of (E)-AZ to (Z)-AZ, to some extent, by TAB7. Although the fate of AZ in the soil microcosm supplemented with TAB7 will be needed, our findings broaden our knowledge of possible AZ biotransformation products.

Understanding hydrogen-bonding networks in nanocrystals and microcrystals that are too small for X-ray diffractometry is a challenge. Although electron diffraction (ED) or electron 3D crystallography are applicable to determining the structures of such nanocrystals owing to their strong scattering power, these techniques still lead to ambiguities in the hydrogen atom positions and misassignments of atoms with similar atomic numbers such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Here, we propose a technique combining ED, solid-state NMR (SSNMR), and first-principles quantum calculations to overcome these limitations. The rotational ED method is first used to determine the positions of the non-hydrogen atoms, and SSNMR is then applied to ascertain the hydrogen atom positions and assign the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms via the NMR signals for 1H, 13C, 14N, and 15N with the aid of quantum computations. This approach elucidates the hydrogen-bonding networks in L-histidine and cimetidine form B whose structure was previously unknown.

Atomic-level characterization of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) is crucial in pharmaceutical industry because APIs play an important role in physicochemical properties of drug formulations. However, the analysis of targeted APIs in intact tablet formulations is less straightforward due to the coexistence of excipients as major components and different APIs at dilute concentrations (often below 10 ​wt% loading). Although solid-state (ss) NMR spectroscopy is widely used to investigate short-range order, polymorphism, and pseudo-polymorphism in neat pharmaceutical compounds, the analysis of complex drug formulations is often limited by overlapped signals that originate from structurally different APIs and excipients. In particular, such examples are frequently encountered in the analysis of 1H ssNMR spectra of pharmaceutical formulations. While the high-resolution in 1H ssNMR spectra can be attained by, for example, high magnetic fields accompanied by fast magic-angle spinning (MAS) approaches, the spectral complexity associated with the mixtures of compounds hinders the accurate determination of chemical shifts and through-space proximities. Here we propose a fast MAS (70 ​kHz) NMR experiment for the selective detection of 1H signals associated with an API from a severely overlapped NMR spectrum of a tablet formulation. Spectral simplification is achieved by combining (i) symmetry-based dipolar recoupling (SR412) rotational-echo saturation-pulse double-resonance (RESPDOR) with phase-modulate (PM) saturation pulses, (ii) radio frequency-driven recoupling (RFDR), and (iii) double-quantum excitation using Back-to-Back (BaBa) pulse sequence elements. First, 1H sites in close proximities to 14N nuclei of an API are excited using a PM-S-RESPDOR sequence, and simultaneously, the other unwanted 1H signals of excipients are suppressed. Then, 1H magnetization transfer to adjacent 1H sites in the API is achieved by spin diffusion process using a RFDR sequence, which polarizes to 1H sites within the crystalline API regions of the drug formulation. Next, a PM-S-RESPDOR-RFDR sequence is combined with a Back-to-Back (BaBa) sequence to elucidate local-structures and 1H–1H proximities of the API in a dosage form. The PM-S-RESPDOR-RFDR-BaBa experiment is employed in one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) versions to selectively detect the 1H ssNMR spectrum of l-cysteine (10.6 ​wt% or 0.11 ​mg) in a commercial formulation, and compared with the spectra of neat l-cysteine recorded using a standard BaBa experiment. The 2D 1H double-quantum−single-quantum (DQ-SQ) spectrum of the API (l-cysteine)-detected pharmaceutical tablet is in good agreement with the 2D 1H DQ-SQ spectrum obtained from the pure API molecule. Furthermore, the sensitivity and robustness of the experiment is examined by selectively detecting 1H{14N} signals in an amino acid salt, l-histidine.H2O.HCl.

Polyfluorinated and perfluorinated compounds in the environment are a growing health concern. 19F‐detected variants of commonly employed heteronuclear shift correlation experiments such as heteronuclear single quantum correlation (HSQC) and heteronuclear multiple bond correlation (HMBC) are available; 19F‐detected experiments that employ carbon–carbon homonuclear coupling, in contrast, have never been reported. Herein, we report the measurement of the 1JCC and nJCC coupling constants of a simple perfluorinated phthalonitrile and the first demonstration of a 19F‐detected 1,1‐ADEQUATE experiment.

The ROSY (Relaxation Ordered SpectroscopY) is a method in which the 13C CPMAS spectrum of a mixture is classified by a longitudinal relaxation time of 1H, and the 13C CPMAS spectrum is displayed separately for each substance. In solution NMR, each peak in the 1H spectrum has its own longitudinal relaxation time. In solid-state NMR, however, spin diffusion occurs due to the dipolor interaction between 1H, and all 1H have the same longitudinal relaxation in the domain within a certain distance. The 13C spectrum can be separated for each domain by using this difference in relaxation time of 1H. The longitudinal relaxation time (T1H) obtained by the saturation recovery method as shown in Fig.1a is usually used to separate the 13C spectrum of the mixture. The size of the domain that can be separated by this method is about 100 nm. To separate domains smaller than this, a measurement using the relaxation time at rotational flame (T1ρH) obtained by the spinlock method as shown in Fig.1b is effective. The domain size that can be separated by T1ρH is about several nm, and it is possible to determine the phase separation structure of block copolymers and the molecular compatibility.

Diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (DOSY) is a powerful NMR method for the analysis of mixtures. In DOSY, signals in the NMR spectrum are resolved according to the measured diffusion coefficient for each signal, yielding a 2D spectrum which has chemical shift along the x-axis and diffusion coefficient along the y-axis.

NOE (Nuclear Overhauser Effect) correlations  comprise important information to estimate internuclear distance and determine structure. However, NOE correlation peaks are very weak compared with diagonal peaks in 2D NOESY. For this reason, it is difficult to observe NOE correlation peaks in the vicinity of much larger diagonal peaks.

The ROYALPROBE™ HFX can simultaneously irradiate 1H, 19F, and 13C (or other X-nuclei) even in a basic console with basic two-channel console, and is a versatile probe that can measure a wide-variety of nuclei at high sensitivity. Here we introduce some useful experiments for fluorine-containing compounds that can be run on conjunction with JNM-ECZ400S equipped with ROYALPROBE™ HFX.

1H, in principle, is very useful nucleus to investigate atomic-resolution structures and dynamics due to its high abundance (>99%) and gyromagnetic ratio (600 MHz at 14.1T). In fact 1H is the first choice of nucleus in solution NMR. On the other hand, 1H NMR of rigid solids is much less common. This is because 1H solid-state NMR gives very broad (~50 kHz) and featureless spectra (Fig 1a) due to strong 1H-1H dipolar coupling, which is dynamically averaged out in solution. Magic angle spinning (MAS) removes the broadening to the first order, but is not enough to achieve high resolution 1H NMR at moderate MAS rate (Fig 1b). Tremendous efforts were made to overcome this issue from the early dates of solid-state NMR towards high-resolution 1H NMR [1]. Most of them combine MAS with sophisticated 1H pulses which is dubbed CRAMPS (combined rotation and multiple pulse spectroscopy). Nowadays very fast MAS > 60 kHz can be used to achieve high-resolution 1H solid-state NMR (Fig 1c) [2]. However, the traditional CRAMPS is still useful as that can be performed with very conventional solid-state NMR equipment, for example 4 mm MAS probe with a 400 MHz spectrometer. Moreover, wPMLG at moderate MAS rate often overwhelms fast MAS in terms of resolution. In this note, we will describe tutorial guidance to optimize experimental parameters for CRAMPS.

Multidimensional correlation NMR spectroscopies, which provides inter-nuclear proximity/connectivity, play a crucial role to probe the atomic resolution structures. Especially, 1H-1H homonuclear correlation spectroscopy is quite useful source of information because of high abundance (>99%) and gyromagnetic ratio, thus resulting in strong inter nuclear interactions. Thanks to the development of high resolution 1H solid-state NMR, now it is feasible to observe 1H-1H correlation high resolution solid-state NMR [1]. There are two distinctive categories; 1) single quantum (SQ)/SQ correlation and 2) double quantum (DQ)/SQ correlations. In this note we introduce 2D 1H SQ/ 1H SQ and 1H DQ/ 1H SQ correlation spectroscopy to probe the internuclear proximity using high-resolution 1H solid-state NMR techniques.