Detection of twinning in macromolecular crystallography

2016 ◽  
Vol 231 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhipu Luo ◽  
Zbigniew Dauter
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Diffraction Pattern ◽  
Crystal Structures ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Diffraction Data ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Statistical Properties ◽  
Macromolecular Crystallography ◽  
Atomic Models

AbstractThe merohedrally or pseudo-merohedrally twinned crystals cannot be identified during diffraction pattern inspection at the stage of data collection. Several methods for identifying twinning and estimating the twin fraction are suitable for macromolecular crystals, and all are based on the statistical properties of the measured diffraction intensities. They can be based on either the overall statistical properties of the measured reflection intensities or on the comparison of reflection intensities related by the twinning operation. The application of various tests for identification of twinning and estimation of twinning fraction is discussed, with examples of diffraction data from the Protein Data Bank. Twinning makes the solution of crystal structures more difficult, but once initially solved, the atomic models can be properly refined by the existing programs.

scholarly journals Crystallography and chemistry should always go together: a cautionary tale of protein complexes with cisplatin and carboplatin

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (9) ◽  
pp. 1965-1979 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Shabalin ◽  
Zbigniew Dauter ◽  
Mariusz Jaskolski ◽  
Wladek Minor ◽  
Alexander Wlodawer
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Anticancer Activity ◽  
Crystal Structures ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Diffraction Data ◽  
Chemical Nature ◽  
Protein Complexes ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Cautionary Tale

The anticancer activity of platinum-containing drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin is considered to primarily arise from their interactions with nucleic acids; nevertheless, these drugs, or the products of their hydrolysis, also bind to proteins, potentially leading to the known side effects of the treatments. Here, over 40 crystal structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) of cisplatin and carboplatin complexes of several proteins were analysed. Significant problems of either a crystallographic or a chemical nature were found in most of the presented atomic models and they could be traced to less or more serious deficiencies in the data-collection and refinement procedures. The re-evaluation of these data and models was possible thanks to their mandatory or voluntary deposition in publicly available databases, emphasizing the point that the availability of such data is critical for making structural science reproducible. Based on this analysis of a selected group of macromolecular structures, the importance of deposition of raw diffraction data is stressed and a procedure for depositing, tracking and using re-refined crystallographic models is suggested.

scholarly journals New tools for the analysis and validation of cryo-EM maps and atomic models

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (9) ◽  
pp. 814-840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel V. Afonine ◽  
Bruno P. Klaholz ◽  
Nigel W. Moriarty ◽  
Billy K. Poon ◽  
Oleg V. Sobolev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Computational Methods ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Macromolecular Crystallography ◽  
Electron Cryomicroscopy ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Atomic Models ◽  
Electron Microscopy Data ◽  
Microscopy Data

Recent advances in the field of electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) have resulted in a rapidly increasing number of atomic models of biomacromolecules that have been solved using this technique and deposited in the Protein Data Bank and the Electron Microscopy Data Bank. Similar to macromolecular crystallography, validation tools for these models and maps are required. While some of these validation tools may be borrowed from crystallography, new methods specifically designed for cryo-EM validation are required. Here, new computational methods and tools implemented inPHENIXare discussed, includingd99to estimate resolution,phenix.auto_sharpento improve maps andphenix.mtriageto analyze cryo-EM maps. It is suggested that cryo-EM half-maps and masks should be deposited to facilitate the evaluation and validation of cryo-EM-derived atomic models and maps. The application of these tools to deposited cryo-EM atomic models and maps is also presented.

scholarly journals New tools for the analysis and validation of Cryo-EM maps and atomic models

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel V. Afonine ◽  
Bruno P. Klaholz ◽  
Nigel W. Moriarty ◽  
Billy K. Poon ◽  
Oleg V. Sobolev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Computational Methods ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Macromolecular Crystallography ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Atomic Models ◽  
Electron Microscopy Data ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
Microscopy Data

AbstractRecent advances in the field of electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) have resulted in a rapidly increasing number of atomic models of bio-macromolecules solved using this technique and deposited in the Protein Data Bank and the Electron Microscopy Data Bank. Similar to macromolecular crystallography, validation tools for these models and maps are required. While some of these validation tools may be borrowed from crystallography, new methods specifically for cryo-EM validation are required. We discuss new computational methods and tools implemented in Phenix, including d99 to estimate resolution, phenix.auto_sharpen to improve maps, and phenix.mtriage to analyze cryo-EM maps. We suggest that cryo-EM half-maps and masks are deposited to facilitate evaluation and validation of cryo-EM derived atomic models and maps. We also present the application of these tools to deposited cryo-EM atomic models and maps.

scholarly journals Validation and correction of Zn–Cys x His y complexes

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (10) ◽  
pp. 1110-1118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wouter G. Touw ◽  
Bart van Beusekom ◽  
Jochem M. G. Evers ◽  
Gert Vriend ◽  
Robbie P. Joosten
Keyword(s):  
Crystal Structures ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Model Validation ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Zinc Complexes ◽  
Zinc Ions ◽  
Tetrahedral Complex ◽  
Context Sensitive

Many crystal structures in the Protein Data Bank contain zinc ions in a geometrically distorted tetrahedral complex with four Cys and/or His ligands. A method is presented to automatically validate and correct these zinc complexes. Analysis of the corrected zinc complexes shows that the average Zn–Cys distances and Cys–Zn–Cys angles are a function of the number of cysteines and histidines involved. The observed trends can be used to develop more context-sensitive targets for model validation and refinement.

scholarly journals Conformation-dependent restraints for polynucleotides: the sugar moiety

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 962-973
Author(s):  
Marcin Kowiel ◽  
Dariusz Brzezinski ◽  
Miroslaw Gilski ◽  
Mariusz Jaskolski
Keyword(s):  
Nucleic Acids ◽  
Crystal Structures ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Side Chain ◽  
Torsion Angles ◽  
Sugar Moiety ◽  
Structural Database ◽  
Different Parts

Abstract Stereochemical restraints are commonly used to aid the refinement of macromolecular structures obtained by experimental methods at lower resolution. The standard restraint library for nucleic acids has not been updated for over two decades and needs revision. In this paper, geometrical restraints for nucleic acids sugars are derived using information from high-resolution crystal structures in the Cambridge Structural Database. In contrast to the existing restraints, this work shows that different parts of the sugar moiety form groups of covalent geometry dependent on various chemical and conformational factors, such as the type of ribose or the attached nucleobase, and ring puckering or rotamers of the glycosidic (χ) or side-chain (γ) torsion angles. Moreover, the geometry of the glycosidic link and the endocyclic ribose bond angles are functionally dependent on χ and sugar pucker amplitude (τm), respectively. The proposed restraints have been positively validated against data from the Nucleic Acid Database, compared with an ultrahigh-resolution Z-DNA structure in the Protein Data Bank, and tested by re-refining hundreds of crystal structures in the Protein Data Bank. The conformation-dependent sugar restraints presented in this work are publicly available in REFMAC, PHENIX and SHELXL format through a dedicated RestraintLib web server with an API function.

Mathematical aspects of molecular replacement. III. Properties of space groups preferred by proteins in the Protein Data Bank

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Chirikjian ◽  
S. Sajjadi ◽  
D. Toptygin ◽  
Y. Yan
Keyword(s):  
Rigid Body ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Continuous Group ◽  
Molecular Replacement ◽  
Macromolecular Crystallography ◽  
Coset Space ◽  
Space Groups ◽  
The Third ◽  
Rigid Body Motions

The main goal of molecular replacement in macromolecular crystallography is to find the appropriate rigid-body transformations that situate identical copies of model proteins in the crystallographic unit cell. The search for such transformations can be thought of as taking place in the coset space Γ\Gwhere Γ is the Sohncke group of the macromolecular crystal andGis the continuous group of rigid-body motions in Euclidean space. This paper, the third in a series, is concerned with viewing nonsymmorphic Γ in a new way. These space groups, rather than symmorphic ones, are the most common ones for protein crystals. Moreover, their properties impact the structure of the space Γ\G. In particular, nonsymmorphic space groups contain both Bieberbach subgroups and symmorphic subgroups. A number of new theorems focusing on these subgroups are proven, and it is shown that these concepts are related to the preferences that proteins have for crystallizing in different space groups, as observed in the Protein Data Bank.

Use of Patterson-based methods automatically to determine the structures of heavy-atom-containing proteins with up to 6000 non-hydrogen atoms in the asymmetric unit

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 728-734 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Burla ◽  
Rocco Caliandro ◽  
Benedetta Carrozzini ◽  
Giovanni Luca Cascarano ◽  
Liberato De Caro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crystal Structures ◽  
Protein Data Bank ◽  
Heavy Atom ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Atomic Resolution ◽  
Asymmetric Unit ◽  
Hydrogen Atoms ◽  
Heavy Atoms ◽  
Density Maps ◽  
Resolution Data

The Patterson superposition methods described by Burlaet al.[J. Appl. Cryst.(2006),39, 527–535], based on the use of the `multiple implication functions', have been enriched by supplementary filtering techniques based on some general (resolution-dependent) features of both the Patterson and the electron density maps. The method has been implemented in a modified version of the programSIR2004and tested using a set of 20 crystal structures selected from the Protein Data Bank, having a number of non-hydrogen atoms in the asymmetric unit larger than 2000, atomic resolution data and some heavy atoms (equal to or heavier than Ca). The new phasing procedure is able to solve most of the test structures, among which there are two proteins with more than 6000 non-hydrogen atoms in the asymmetric unit, so extending by far the complexity today commonly considered as the limit for Patterson-based methods (i.e.about 2000 non-hydrogen atoms).

scholarly journals Structure determination from X-ray powder diffraction data at low resolution

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (a1) ◽  
pp. C143-C143
Author(s):  
Hongliang Xu
Keyword(s):  
Single Crystal ◽  
Diffraction Pattern ◽  
Crystal Structures ◽  
Powder Diffraction ◽  
Diffraction Data ◽  
Structure Determination ◽  
Direct Methods ◽  
Atomic Resolution ◽  
Powder Diffraction Data ◽  
Low Resolution

Knowledge of the structural arrangement of atoms in solids is necessary to facilitate the study of their properties. The best and most detailed structural information is obtained when the diffraction pattern of a single crystal a few tenths of a millimeter in each dimension is analyzed, but growing high-quality crystals of this size is often difficult, sometimes impossible. However, many crystallization experiments that do not yield single crystals do yield showers of randomly oriented micro-crystals that can be exposed to X-rays simultaneously to produce a powder diffraction pattern. Direct Methods routinely solve crystal structures when single-crystal diffraction data are available at atomic resolution (1.0-1.2Å), but fail to determine micro-crystal structures due to reflections overlapping and low-resolution powder diffraction data. By artificially and intelligently extending the measured data to atomic resolution, we have successfully solved structures having low-resolution diffraction data that were hard to solve by other direct-method based computation procedures. The newly developed method, Powder Shake-and-Bake, is implemented in a computer program PowSnB. PowSnB can be incorporated into the state-of-the-art software package EXPO that includes powder data reduction, structure determination and structure refinement. The new combination could have potential to solve structures that have never been solved before by direct-methods approach.

scholarly journals A tutorial for learning and teaching macromolecular crystallography

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1161-1172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Faust ◽  
Santosh Panjikar ◽  
Uwe Mueller ◽  
Venkataraman Parthasarathy ◽  
Andrea Schmidt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Data Processing ◽  
Diffraction Data ◽  
Structure Determination ◽  
Macromolecular Crystallography ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Learning And Teaching

Five experiments have been designed to be used for teaching macromolecular crystallography. The three proteins used in this tutorial are all commercially available; they can be easily and reproducibly crystallized and mounted for diffraction data collection. For each of the five experiments the raw images and the processed data of a sample diffraction data set as well as the refined coordinates and phases are provided for teaching the steps of data processing and structure determination.

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