Standard molecular description file format

A Proposal for a Standard Format for Molecular Description Files. ... 

The Effort To Define a Standard Molecular Description File Format... 

Figure 3. With a standard molecular description file format modelers would not have to write conversion programs.

The features which a standard molecular description file format must have in order to be useful and enduring largely depend on the research areas in which the file is to be used. But certainly, it would be helpful if the standard were versatile and extensible so that emerging areas of research could be accommodated without frequent major revisions being necessary. However, the scale of detail in the models employed in some research areas differs so greatly that it may be better to have different but related standards for each area. Specifically, perhaps there should be a standard for molecular descriptions at the atomic level and a separate standard for biopolymer descriptions at the residue level. The two standards must be related so that a molecular model at the atomic level could be generated for conformation studies when only a sequence is known and sequence homologies in a sequence data bank could be rapidly searched for a biopolymer of known conformation. 

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