Macromolecular structure data sources

PDB is one of the oldest protein data bases, founded in 1971. It has three locations, Rutgers University in New Jersey, San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The PDB is a source for protein characterization and structure as well. The PDB archive contains macromolecular structure data on proteins, nucleic acids, protein-nucleic acid complexes, and viruses. Approximately 50-100 new structures are deposited each week, which are annotated and released upon the depositor s specifications. PDB data are freely available worldwide. PDB formats, annotates, validates, and releases dozens of complicated structure files each week some of them take only a couple of hours, others take weeks to process. Data processing is the main task of people at the PDB and validation is the most time-consuming part (Smith-Schmidt, 2002). 

Protein data bank showing 3D biological macromolecular structure data. Available at http //www.rcsb.org/pdb White JS and White DC (1997) Source book of enzymes. Boca Raton CRC Press. 

Research over many years has relied upon the data in the PDB. The macromolecular structures have been put to any number of diverse uses, including a reference source for protein substructures to assist in homology modeling and X-ray structure determination and providing conformations of bound... 

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