The PDB data uniformity project.

The Protein Data Bank (PDB; http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/) is the single worldwide archive of structural data of biological macromolecules. This paper describes the data uniformity project that is underway to address the inconsistency in PDB data.

The Protein Data Bank and the challenge of structural genomics.

The PDB has created systems for the processing, exchange, query, and distribution of data that will enable many aspects of high throughput structural genomics.

The Protein Data Bank.

The Protein Data Bank (PDB; http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/ ) is the single worldwide archive of structural data of biological macromolecules. This paper describes the goals of the PDB, the systems in place for data deposition and access, how to obtain further information, and near-term plans for the future development of the resource.

An analysis of the Protein Data Bank in search of temporal and global trends.

MOTIVATION: Biological databases, with their rapidly expanding contents, are indispensable tools in the quest to understand more about biological function. However, a serious user of a database that comprises a large collection of data, collected over a long period, will likely be struck by the inconsistency in reporting individual items of data. This paper takes a critical look at the Protein Data Bank (PDB) to explore the seriousness of the problem in one particular data set and to explore the implications to those actively engaged in comparative analysis of these data. RESULTS: Averaged over the complete corpus, the stereochemical quality of atomic models has, in the past few years, moved towards ideal values. At the same time, there are inconsistencies in how data are reported. Water content is not reported consistently and the percent of data collected when reporting the high-resolution shell varies, detracting from the value of resolution as a yardstick for assessing the quality of a structure. A more detailed analysis of these inconsistencies is hampered by the lack of machine-readable experimental data. To the user of macromolecular structure data, this suggests that structural details beyond the standard quality measures of resolution and R value should be considered when using coordinate sets for further derivation or in inferring biological function. To the curators of the PDB, this suggests the need to capture more of the experimental data associated with the experiment in a way that permits straightforward parsing.

A prototype molecular interactive collaborative environment (MICE).

Illustrations of macromolecular structure in the scientific literature contain a high level of semantic content through which the authors convey, among other features, the biological function of that macromolecule. We refer to these illustrations as molecular scenes. Such scenes, if available electronically, are not readily accessible for further interactive interrogation. The basic PDB format does not retain features of the scene; formats like PostScript retain the scene but are not interactive; and the many formats used by individual graphics programs, while capable of reproducing the scene, are neither interchangeable nor can they be stored in a database and queried for features of the scene. MICE defines a Molecular Scene Description Language (MSDL) which allows scenes to be stored in a relational database (a molecular scene gallery) and queried. Scenes retrieved from the gallery are rendered in Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and currently displayed in WebView, a VRML browser modified to support the Virtual Reality Behavior System (VRBS) protocol. VRBS provides communication between multiple client browsers, each capable of manipulating the scene. This level of collaboration works well over standard Internet connections and holds promise for collaborative research at a distance and distance learning. Further, via VRBS, the VRML world can be used as a visual cue to trigger an application such as a remote MEME search. MICE is very much work in progress. Current work seeks to replace WebView with Netscape, Cosmoplayer, a standard VRML plug-in, and a Java-based console. The console consists of a generic kernel suitable for multiple collaborative applications and additional application-specific controls. Further details of the MICE project are available at http:/(/)mice.sdsc.edu.

Macromolecular structure databases: past progress and future challenges.

Databases containing macromolecular structure data provide a crystallographer with important tools for use in solving, refining and understanding the functional significance of their protein structures. Given this importance, this paper briefly summarizes past progress by outlining the features of the significant number of relevant databases developed to date. One recent database, PDB+, containing all current and obsolete structures deposited with the Protein Data Bank (PDB) is discussed in more detail. PDB+ has been used to analyze the self-consistency of the current (1 January 1998) corpus of over 7000 structures. A summary of those findings is presented (a full discussion will appear elsewhere) in the form of global and temporal trends within the data. These trends indicate that challenges exist if crystallographers are to provide the community with complete and consistent structural results in the future. It is argued that better information management practices are required to meet these challenges.

Tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase participates in the establishment and growth of feather germs in embryonic chick skin cultures.

Alkaline phosphatase activity is present in the mesoderm of embryonic chick skin and becomes spatially restricted to the dermal condensation of the developing feather germs. Inhibitors to tissue-nonspecific (liver/bone/kidney), but not intestinal alkaline phosphatase inhibit the establishment and growth of feather germs in cultured skins. A window of maximum sensitivity to the inhibitor was observed to be the first day of culture when early development and establishment of pattern takes place. The cDNA for the avian tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase was cloned and sequenced, and Southern analysis revealed a single copy of this gene in the avian genome. Northern analysis revealed that a 2.8 kb transcript for this form of alkaline phosphatase is present in developing skin.

Assembly of the cadherin-catenin complex in vitro with recombinant proteins.

The cytoplasmic domain of classical cadherins is tightly associated with three proteins termed alpha-, beta- and gamma-catenin. These accessory proteins are of central importance for the adhesive properties of this class of cell adhesion molecules. In order to examine the molecular architecture of the cadherin-catenin complex in more detail we have expressed the catenins and the cytoplasmic domain of E-cadherin as fusion proteins in Escherichia coli, and analyzed the interaction of purified recombinant cadherin and catenins in combinatorial protein-protein interaction experiments. The cytoplasmic domain of E-cadherin cannot directly associate with alpha-catenin but interacts with high affinity with beta-catenin, whereas the binding of gamma-catenin (plakoglobin) to E-cadherin is less efficient. alpha- and beta-catenin assemble into a 1:1 heterodimeric complex. The analysis of various truncated beta-catenins revealed that an alpha-catenin binding site in beta-catenin is localized between amino acid positions 120 and 151. The central role of beta-catenin for the assembly of the heterotrimeric E-cadherin/alpha-catenin/beta-catenin complex in mixing experiments with all components was demonstrated. The reconstitution in vitro of the cadherin-catenin complex should allow the study of the interaction with signalling molecules and with the actin-based cytoskeleton.

Cloning and expression of the bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase gene: biochemical characterization of the recombinant enzyme.

A complete genomic clone and a full-length cDNA coding for bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase have been isolated and sequenced. The gene (5.4 kb) contains 11 exons separated by ten small introns at positions identical to those other members of the eukaryotic tissue-specific alkaline phosphatase family. In addition, 1.5 kb of upstream sequences contain putative regulatory elements showing sequence similarity to human and mouse intestinal alkaline phosphatase promoter sequences. To achieve recombinant bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase expression, the coding region of the gene was subcloned into the pcDNA I eukaryotic expression vector and transfected into Chinese hamster ovary cells. Recombinant bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase displays enzymatic properties comparable with those of purified native bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase, a slightly increased thermal stability and, upon desialylation, it shows a homogeneous behaviour in agarose gel electrophoresis and isoelectric focusing. The availability of the recombinant bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase and the elucidation of its primary sequence will help to accelerate our efforts to obtain the first crystallographic model of a eukaryotic alkaline phosphatase molecule.

Action Spectrum for the Light-Dependent Step in Gametic Differentiation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Differentiation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii vegetative cells to gametes requires two environmental signals: nitrogen starvation and light. Vegetative cells incubated without nitrogen differentiate into pregametes. Pregametes can be converted into sexually mature gametes by irradiation with light. The action spectrum for the light-dependent step in gamete formation showed two maxima at 370 and 450 nanometers. This is similar to the spectrum of other blue light/ultraviolet light-A-absorbing photoreceptors.