Open AccessMacromolecular Structure Databases: Past Progress and Future Challenges
Author(s) -
Weissig Helge,
Shindyalov Ilya N.,
Bourne Philip E.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
acta crystallographica section d
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1399-0047
DOI - 10.1107/s0907444998009846
Subject(s) - consistency (knowledge bases) , protein data bank (rcsb pdb) , database , computer science , data science , protein data bank , protein structure , chemistry , artificial intelligence , biochemistry , stereochemistry
Databases containing macromolecular structure data provide a crystallographer with important tools for use in solving, refining and understanding the functional significance of their protein structures. Given this importance, this paper briefly summarizes past progress by outlining the features of the significant number of relevant databases developed to date. One recent database, PDB+, containing all current and obsolete structures deposited with the Protein Data Bank (PDB) is discussed in more detail. PDB+ has been used to analyze the self‐consistency of the current (1 January 1998) corpus of over 7000 structures. A summary of those findings is presented (a full discussion will appear elsewhere) in the form of global and temporal trends within the data. These trends indicate that challenges exist if crystallographers are to provide the community with complete and consistent structural results in the future. It is argued that better information management practices are required to meet these challenges.