title: The young person's guide to the PDB.
abstract: The Protein Data Bank (PDB), created in 1971 when merely seven protein crystal structures were known, today holds over 120, 000 experimentally-determined three-dimensional models of macromolecules, including gigantic structures comprised of hundreds of thousands of atoms, such as ribosomes and viruses. Most of the deposits come from X-ray crystallography experiments, with important contributions also made by NMR spectroscopy and, recently, by the fast growing Cryo-Electron Microscopy. Although the determination of a macromolecular crystal structure is now facilitated by advanced experimental tools and by sophisticated software, it is still a highly complicated research process requiring specialized training, skill, experience and a bit of luck. Understanding the plethora of structural information provided by the PDB requires that its users (consumers) have at least a rudimentary initiation. This is the purpose of this educational overview.
authors.affiliation: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA.
authors.forename: Wladek
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Minor
authors.affiliation: Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, National Cancer Institute, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.
authors.forename: Zbigniew
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Dauter
authors.affiliation: Zakład Krystalografii, Wydział Chemii, Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza w Poznaniu ul. Grunwaldzka 6, 60-780 Poznań, Polska.|Centrum Badań Biokrystalograficznych, Instytut Chemii Bioorganicznej PAN, ul. Z. Noskowskiego 12/14, 61-704 Poznań, Polska.
authors.forename: Mariusz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jaskolski
mesh_terms: D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D030562:Databases, Protein; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D019906:Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins
keywords: Protein Data Bank; data mining; macromolecular structure; structural biology; structural databases; structure validation