The number of directly acquired points (3 TD) should be set so the acquisition time t3,max (3 AQ) is between ~50 ms (for larger proteins ~25 kDa) and ~120 ms (for smaller proteins). Longer times may cause excessive probe and sample heating during 15N decoupling, and resolve undesirable 3JHN,HA splittings.
Since the F2(15N) is a constant-time dimension, number of acquired points 2 TD should be should be set to the largest possible value for optimal S/N. The maximum 2 TD value is 2*int(d30/in30), where d30 is the decremented delay, and in30 is the decrement value. Both d30 and in30 are computed internally according to pulse program code and their values are shown in ased view. Note that in30 = in10 = 1(4*SW(N)). In TopSpin 4.x the ased command would produce a warning if 2 TD is set too large and reset the internal td2 parameter to the maximum possible value.
"Effective" 1JNH parameter CNST4 defines the length of the INEPT transfer delays. For larger proteins CNST4 can be increased to compensate for relaxation losses during these delay. Normally it would be optimized by arraying it using popt with a 15N HSQC experiment in 1D mode.
Since 3D HBHA(CO)NH only has 2 peaks per residue, NUS sampling amount can be as low as 5-10% provided there is sufficient S/N.
2D F1(Hab)-F3(HN) 2D plane can be acquired by setting 2 TD to 1. Since HA and HB peaks have opposite signs, the 2D F2(N)-F3(HN) plane would have few signals apart from glycines, and is usually never recorded by itself.
To check whether HBHA(CO)NH-TROSY or regular HBHA(CO)NH yields better S/N for your sample at a particular field strength, record and compare the respective 2D F2(N)-F3(HN) planes of TROSY-CBCA(CO)NH or regular CBCA(CO)NH using identical spectral parameters.
This pulse sequence uses TPPI method to shift the apparent center of F1(Hab) dimension without frequency switching. The center of F1(Hab) in ppm is set approximately by CNST20. The exact frequency shift relative to O1 in Hz is calculated and stored as CNST62. The exact center frequency of F1(Hab) in MHz is saved as SFO1 status parameter for F1 dimension (in acqus3 file).
For proper referencing in Topspin: increase the 1 SR parameter by the value of CNST62.
For proper referencing in nmrPipe: in the conversion script (e.g. fid.com) set zOBS equal to xOBS; set zCAR to (xCAR - (CNST62 / xOBS)). Make sure the resulting zCAR parameter is close to CNST20.