Low temperature ⁶⁵Cu NMR spectroscopy of the Cu⁺ site in azurin

⁶⁵Cu central-transition NMR spectroscopy of the blue copper protein azurin in the reduced Cu(I) state, conducted at 18.8 T and 10 K, gave a strongly second order quadrupole perturbed spectrum, which yielded a ⁶⁵Cu quadrupole coupling constant of ±71.2 ± 1 MHz, corresponding to an electric field gradient of ±1.49 atomic units at the copper site, and an asymmetry parameter of approximately 0.2. Quantum chemical calculations employing second order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory and large basis sets successfully reproduced these experimental results. Sensitivity and relaxation times were quite favorable, suggesting that NMR may be a useful probe of the electronic state of copper sites in proteins.