to ∼2 mM using 10 kDa molecular
mass cutoff spin filters (Amicon), made to 7% D2O for locking,
and loaded into a 5 mm Shigemi low-volume NMR tube. 1D 13C NMR spectra were all recorded with 1H decoupling on
a Varian Inova 300 MHz spectrometer unless otherwise noted. The T1 relaxation time was measured for the chromophore 13Cζ resonance using standard inversion recovery
techniques. The best duty cycle in the 1D spectra was achieved empirically
using a 50° pulse and a delay time of 4.0 s. All experiments
were performed with the temperature control set to 25 °C. The
typical samples for NMR contained 40 mM buffer (HEPES for high-pH
samples and MES for lower-pH samples) and 40 mM NaCl. Phosphate and
citrate buffers and higher salt concentrations were also used for
a limited set of spectra and found to give identical results for a
given pH.