Crystallographic Error Analysis.

A method to detect problem residues in a crystallographic refinement is presented. Each protein residue is analyzed in terms of mainchain (mc) and sidechain (sc) atoms. Poorly modeled regions in the structure are reliably identified. The results may be plotted or viewed with ribbons .

Background

Reference

For background on the method and for purposes of citation the following reference is given:

M. Carson, T.W. Buckner, Z. Yang, S.V.L. Narayana and C.E. Bugg (1994) Error Detection in Crystallographic Models. Acta Cryst. D 50:900-909.

Abstract

A variety of criteria were tested for identifying errors in protein crystal coordinates. Statistical analysis was based on comparisons of a highly refined crystal structure and several preliminary models derived from molecular replacement. A protocol employing temperature factors, real-space fit residuals, geometric strains, dihedral angles, and shifts from the previous refinement cycle is developed. These results are generally applicable to the detection of errors in partially refined protein crystal structures.

Key Points

Crystallographic data is required to reliably assess the quality of a coordinate file. Statistical analysis implies that a linear model of 5 independent variables (see abstract) is required to fit the error. The error model was taken as the deviation between the preliminary coordinates and the final refined coordinates. Grossly incorrect residues (1.0A deviation) are identified with approximately 90% accuracy for the mainchain and 70% for the sidechains. Real-space fit using maps calculated with individual B-factors was the single criteria having the highest per-residue correlation with coordinate error (about 0.7).

Executing the Analysis

(re-working for WHATIF/CNS - let me know if interested)
Ribbons User Manual / UAB-CBSE / carson@uab.edu