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An endofulleropyrrolidine, with H2 as a guest, has been reduced to a paramagnetic endofulleride radical anion. The magnetic interaction between the electron delocalized on the fullerene cage and the guest H2 has been probed by pulsed ENDOR. The experimental hyperfine couplings between the electron and the H2 guest were measured, and their values agree very well with DFT calculations. This agreement provides clear evidence of magnetic communication between the electron density of the fullerene host cage and H2 guest. The ortho-H2/para-H2 interconversion is revealed by temperature-dependent ENDOR measurements at low temperature. The conversion of the paramagnetic ortho-H2 to the diamagnetic para-H2 causes the ENDOR signal to decrease as the temperature is lowered due to the spin catalysis by the paramagnetic fullerene cage of the radical anion fulleride.

Human α-Synuclein (aS), a 140 amino acid protein, is the main constituent of Lewy bodies, the cytoplasmatic deposits found in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients, where it is present in an aggregated, fibrillar form. Recent studies have shown that aS is a metal binding protein. Moreover, heavy metal ions, in particular divalent copper, accelerate the aggregation process of the protein. In this work, we investigated the high affinity binding mode of truncated aS (1-99) (aS99) with Cu(II), in a stoichiometric ratio, to elucidate the residues involved in the binding site and the role of copper ions in the protein oligomerization. We used Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy on the Cu(II)-aS99 complex at pH 6.5, performing both multifrequency continuous wave experiments and pulsed experiments at X-band. The comparison of 9.5 and 95 GHz data showed that at this pH only one binding mode is present. To identify the nature of the ligands, we performed Electron Spin Echo Envelope Modulation, Hyperfine Sublevel Correlation Spectroscopy, and pulsed Davies Electron-Nuclear Double Resonance (Davies-ENDOR) experiments. We determined that the EPR parameters are typical of a type-II copper complex, in a slightly distorted square planar geometry. Combining the results from the different pulsed techniques, we obtained that the equatorial coordination is {N(Im), N(-), H(2)O, O}, where N(im) is the imino nitrogen of His50, N(-) a deprotonated amido backbone nitrogen that we attribute to His50, H(2)O an exchangeable water molecule, and O an unidentified oxygen ligand. Moreover, we propose that the free amino terminus (Met1) participates in the complex as an axial ligand. The MXAN analysis of the XAS k-edge absorption data allowed us to independently validate the structural features proposed on the basis of the magnetic parameters of the Cu(II)-aS99 complex and then to further refine the quality of the proposed structural model.