protein data bank!

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a repository for the 3-D structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. The data, typically obtained by X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy and submitted by biologists and biochemists from around the world, are freely accessible on the internet. The PDB is overseen by an organization called the Worldwide Protein Data Bank.

The PDB is a key resource in areas of structural biology, such as structural genomics. Most major scientific journals, and some funding agencies, such as the NIH in the USA, now require scientists to submit their structure data to the PDB. If the contents of the PDB are thought of as primary data, then there are hundreds of derived (i.e., secondary) databases that categorize the data differently. For example, both SCOP and CATH categorize structures according to type of structure and assumed evolutionary relations; GO categorize structures based on genes.

FILE FORMAT

The file format initially used by the PDB was called the PDB file format. This original format was restricted by the width of computer punch cards to 80 characters per line. Around 1996, the "macromolecular Crystallographic Information file" format, mmCIF, started to be phased in. An XML version of this format, called PDBML, was described in 2005. The structure files can be downloaded in any of these three formats. In fact, individual files are easily downloaded into graphics packages using web addresses:

• For PDB format files, use, e.g., http://www.pdb.org/pdb/files/4hhb.pdb.gz
• For PDBML (XML) files, use, e.g., http://www.pdb.org/pdb/files/4hhb.xml.gz

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