Structures and NMR spectra of short amylose-lipid complexes. Insight using molecular dynamics and DFT quantum chemical calculations.

It is well established that amylose folds in a helix conformation in presence of lipids. Structural features of such molecular complexes are often analysed using C NMR spectroscopy. The large size of amylose used to make such analysis doesn't allow to unambiguously correlate structure of polymers and spectroscopic signals. We present structural analysis of small sized amyloses complexed to palmitic acid using classical molecular dynamics. 15 glucoses residues are necessary for the amylose to fold around the palmitic acid in a well-established helix conformation. Simulating C NMR spectra using quantum chemical DFT approach, we demonstrate that these spectra are affected by amylose size and specific intramolecular hydrogen bonds. By mean of theoretical NMR spectra of a 19-residues amylose, we precise the attribution of each characteristic resonances. One chemical shift that is usually attributed to a specific carbon may be related to the existence of different inter or intramolecular hydrogen bonds.