Bioinformatics Primers

Pathway Interaction Database provides reviews and commentary illuminating topics of particular interest.

April 2011

• The RCSB Protein Data Bank: site functionality and bioinformatics use cases

  

  The Protein Data Bank (PDB) archive currently contains the atomic coordinates, sequences, annotations, and experimental details of more than 70,000 proteins, nucleic acids and complex assemblies. Navigating and analyzing this large and rapidly expanding volume of structural information by sequence, structure, function and other criteria becomes increasingly difficult. The RCSB PDB website (http://www.pdb.org) provides powerful query, analysis and visualization tools to aid the user in mining the PDB. In addition, the RCSB PDB integrates structural data with information about taxonomy, biological function, protein domain structure, literature, Molecule of the Month articles and other resources, to present the data in a biological context. The three-dimensional (3D) structures make possible an atomic-level understanding of biological phenomena and diseases, and allow the design of new therapeutics.

  Original research paper Pathway Interaction Database doi:10.1038/pid.2011.1