PDBsum rocks for crystallization protocol
Posted by Peter Nollert on Wed, Feb 03, 2010 @ 07:16 PM
This week I came across a message from PDBsum letting us know that certain figures and captions of a paper we had published in 2008 (Gerdts et al. (2008). Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr, 64, 1116-1122.) had been included into PDBsum. I had not visited the PDBsum site before and was at first intrigued and then positively surprised about the wealth of information that was presented on a protein structure (3cxk). This is a high-density, information rich way to get a quick impression on a protein structure and other accessory information.
Figure: Screenshot of the PDBsum entry for 3cxk. The crystallization experiment is nicely referenced in PDB-sum.
What I liked in particular about this presentation is that the crystallization experiment becomes part of the story. Our paper described an earlier, beta version of the MPCS - the plug-based nanovolume microcapillary protein crystallization system. Since the publication of the paper in 2008 the technology has matured substantially (check out the New Product Award 2010 that the PlugMaker has received last week).
Any context that goes beyond just reporting the precipitation reagent helps. Having such exquisite detail available when trying to reproduce protein crystallization experiments is often necessary to build on published research.
Way to go EMBL-EBI!
Peter
