Rotating frame Overhauser pulse sequence

A 2002 review by Reynolds and Enriquez describes the most effective pulse sequences for natural product structure elucidation.86 For natural product chemists, the review recommends HSQC over HMQC, T-ROESY (transverse rotating-frame Overhauser enhancement) in place of NOESY (nuclear Over-hauser enhancement spectroscopy) and CIGAR (constant time inverse-detected gradient accordion rescaled) or constant time HMBC over HMBC. HSQC spectra provide better line shapes than HMQC spectra, but are more demanding on spectrometer hardware. The T-ROESY or transverse ROESY provides better signal to noise for most small molecules compared with a NOESY and limits scalar coupling artefacts. In small-molecule NMR at natural abundance, the 2D HMBC or variants experiment stands out as one of the key NMR experiments for structure elucidation. HMBC spectra provide correlations over multiple bonds and, while this is desirable, it poses the problem of distinguishing between two- and three-bond correlations. 

The best way to avoid the l-cox problem (and weak nOes) is to use a rotating frame experiment, for instance ROESY (Rotating frame Overhauser Effect Spectroscopy) also named CAMELSPIN by its inventors (77). The (oXg dependence of rOes is complex and one may simply remember that rOes are always positive, never null. The ROESY sequence is similar to the sequence of HOHAHA the main difference is the power of the spinlock which is generated by a long soft pulse rather than by a WALTZ sequence. In ROESY experiments, rOe cross peaks may be accompanied by Hart-mann-Hahn correlations which are easily distinguished by their opposite sign (in phased experiments) (78). 

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