title: Correcting the record of structural publications requires joint effort of the community and journal editors.
abstract: Seriously flawed and even fictional models of biomolecular crystal structures, although rare, still persist in the record of structural repositories and databases. The ensuing problems of database contamination and persistence of publications based on incorrect structure models must be effectively addressed. The burden cannot be simply left to the critical voices who take the effort to contribute dissenting comments that are mostly ignored. The entire structural biology community, and particularly the journal editors who exercise significant power in this respect, must engage in a constructive dialog lest structural biology lose its credibility as an evidence-based empirical science.
authors.affiliation: k.-k. Hofkristallamt, Vista, CA, USA.|Department of Genetic Epidemiology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rupp
authors.affiliation: Protein Structure Section, Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wlodawer
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Wladek
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Minor
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry, University of Manchester, UK.
authors.forename: John R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Helliwell
authors.affiliation: Department of Crystallography, Faculty of Chemistry, Center for Biocrystallographic Research, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland.
authors.forename: Mariusz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jaskolski
mesh_terms: D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D030562:Databases, Protein / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D035081:Editorial Policies; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D011642:Publications / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins
keywords: X-ray crystal structure models; biomolecular crystallography; database integrity; error correction; structural databases