title: Whaddaya Know: A Guide to Uncertainty and Subjectivity in Structural Biology.
abstract: The methods of structural biology, while powerful, are technically complex. Although the Protein Data Bank (PDB) provides a repository that allows anyone to download any structure, many users would not appreciate the caveats that should be considered when examining a structure. Here, we describe several key uncertainties associated with the application of X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, single-particle electron microscopy (SPEM), and small-angle scattering (SAS) to biological macromolecules. The take-home message is that structures are not absolute truths - they are models that fit the experimental data and therefore have uncertainty and subjectivity associated with them. These uncertainties must be appreciated - careful reading of the associated paper, and any validation report provided by the structure database, is highly recommended.
authors.affiliation: School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Electronic address: joel.mackay@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Joel P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Mackay
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Landsberg
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Neutron Science, ANSTO, Lucas Heights, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Whitten
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6014, Australia.
authors.forename: Charles S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Bond
mesh_terms: D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000737:chemistry*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008967:Molecular Biology; D053838:Scattering, Small Angle; D035501:Uncertainty
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances
keywords: NMR spectroscopy; X-ray crystallography; single-particle cryo-electron microscopy; small-angle scattering; structural biology; uncertainty