Fukazawa, Jun, Yuuki Mochizuki, Sakyo Kanai, Natsuko Miura, Makoto Negoro, and Akinori Kagawa. “Real-Time Monitoring of Hydrolysis Reactions of Pyrophosphates with Dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 15, no. 28 (July 18, 2024): 7288–94.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c01456.
Dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization (d-DNP) has enabled applications such as the real-time monitoring of chemical reactions. Such applications are mainly for 13C and 15N spins with long spin–lattice relaxation times in the molecules of interest. However, the only applications for phosphorus using d-DNP are pH imaging and nucleation during crystallization due to the short relaxation times. Here we show that it is possible to observe enzyme reactions using d-DNP with phosphorus. Hyperpolarized 31P spins in pyrophosphate were obtained using bullet-DNP, which requires less dilution of highly polarized solid samples. Real-time monitoring of the hydrolysis reaction of pyrophosphate by inorganic pyrophosphatase from baker’s yeast at physiological pH and was successfully achieved and the reaction rate was determined. This is an important reaction for a wide range of applications related to medicine, agriculture, and quantum life science.