Assessment of solvent effects: do weak alignment media affect the structure of the solute?

Alignment media used for measuring residual dipolar couplings, such as solutions of filamentous phages, phospholipid mixtures, polyacrylamide gels and various lyotropic liquid crystalline systems were investigated with respect to solvent effects on molecular structure. Structural parameters of the small rigid model compound 13C-acetonitrile were calculated from dipolar couplings and variations from expectation values were used for assessment of solvent effects. Only minor solvent effects were observed for most of the media employed and the measured structural data are in good agreement with microwave data and theoretical predictions.