Development of a library of annotated H-NMRs of amino acids

Fungal diseases are a human health concern and more research into the basic science of their function is necessary. Metacaspases, found in fungi called Schizophyllum commune, are absent in humans and have little similarities with human caspases. This trait makes metacaspases a promising drug target because theoretically they will not interfere with human enzymes. The Kehlbeck lab aims to synthesize a library of potential metacaspase inhibitor moieties targeting the Schizophyllum commune. One method to confirm the success of the synthesis is to compare the H-NMR of the starting amino acid and the product of the synthesis. Thus, I have created a library of annotated H-NMR of several starting amino acids, such as one protected and two protected lysine, arginine, and valine. The process involves analyzing the amino acids via one dimensional H-NMR and correlated spectroscopy (COSY). COSY is a multidimensional spectroscopy that tells us what proton is coupled to what proton. The peaks are annotated by assigning each of them to each hydrogen in the amino acid. The COSY provides information on the relative location of hydrogens. The hydrogens that are seen to be coupled in the COSY are bonded to an atom next to each other, or within several bonds. This allows us to assign ambiguous peaks from the one dimensional NMR and will aid us in identifying the products and understanding the product's spectra.