Open AccessVisualizing ligand molecules in twilight electron density
Author(s) -
Weichenberger Christian X.,
Pozharski Edwin,
Rupp Bernhard
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
acta crystallographica section f
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1744-3091
DOI - 10.1107/s1744309112044387
Subject(s) - protein data bank (rcsb pdb) , visualization , ligand (biochemistry) , electron density , protein ligand , crystallography , interpretation (philosophy) , atom (system on chip) , chemistry , computer science , physics , electron , computational chemistry , chemical physics , data mining , stereochemistry , quantum mechanics , biochemistry , receptor , embedded system , programming language
Three-dimensional models of protein structures determined by X-ray crystallography are based on the interpretation of experimentally derived electron-density maps. The real-space correlation coefficient (RSCC) provides an easily comprehensible, objective measure of the residue-based fit of atom coordinates to electron density. Among protein structure models, protein-ligand complexes are of special interest, given their contribution to understanding the molecular underpinnings of biological activity and to drug design. For consumers of such models, it is not trivial to determine the degree to which ligand-structure modelling is biased by subjective electron-density interpretation. A standalone script, Twilight, is presented for the analysis, visualization and annotation of a pre-filtered set of 2815 protein-ligand complexes deposited with the PDB as of 15 January 2012 with ligand RSCC values that are below a threshold of 0.6. It also provides simplified access to the visualization of any protein-ligand complex available from the PDB and annotated by the Uppsala Electron Density Server. The script runs on various platforms and is available for download at http://www.ruppweb.org/twilight/.