Protein Data Bank (file format)
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The PDB file format was invented in 1972 as a human-readable file that would allow researchers to exchange the atomic coordinates in a given protein through a database system. Its fixed-column width format is limited to 80 or 140 columns, which was based on the width of the computer punch cards that were previously used to exchange the coordinates. Through the years the file format has undergone many changes and revisions. The final update to the PDB file format was in November 2012 with version 3.30.
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Example
A typical PDB file describing a protein consists of hundreds to thousands of lines like the following (taken from a file describing the structure of a synthetic collagen-like peptide):
HEADER EXTRACELLULAR MATRIX 22-JAN-98 1A3I TITLE X-RAY CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC DETERMINATION OF A COLLAGEN-LIKE TITLE 2 PEPTIDE WITH THE REPEATING SEQUENCE (PRO-PRO-GLY) ... EXPDTA X-RAY DIFFRACTION AUTHOR R.Z.KRAMER,L.VITAGLIANO,J.BELLA,R.BERISIO,L.MAZZARELLA, AUTHOR 2 B.BRODSKY,A.ZAGARI,H.M.BERMAN ... REMARK 350 BIOMOLECULE: 1 REMARK 350 APPLY THE FOLLOWING TO CHAINS: A, B, C REMARK 350 BIOMT1 1 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.00000 REMARK 350 BIOMT2 1 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.00000 ... SEQRES 1 A 9 PRO PRO GLY PRO PRO GLY PRO PRO GLY SEQRES 1 B 6 PRO PRO GLY PRO PRO GLY SEQRES 1 C 6 PRO PRO GLY PRO PRO GLY ... ATOM 1 N PRO A 1 8.316 21.206 21.530 1.00 17.44 N ATOM 2 CA PRO A 1 7.608 20.729 20.336 1.00 17.44 C ATOM 3 C PRO A 1 8.487 20.707 19.092 1.00 17.44 C ATOM 4 O PRO A 1 9.466 21.457 19.005 1.00 17.44 O ATOM 5 CB PRO A 1 6.460 21.723 20.211 1.00 22.26 C ... HETATM 130 C ACY 401 3.682 22.541 11.236 1.00 21.19 C HETATM 131 O ACY 401 2.807 23.097 10.553 1.00 21.19 O HETATM 132 OXT ACY 401 4.306 23.101 12.291 1.00 21.19 O ...
- HEADER, TITLE and AUTHOR records
- provide information about the researchers who defined the structure; numerous other types of records are available to provide other types of information.
- REMARK records
- can contain free-form annotation, but they also accommodate standardized information; for example, the
REMARK 350 BIOMTrecords describe how to compute the coordinates of the experimentally observed multimer from those of the explicitly specified ones of a single repeating unit. - SEQRES records
- give the sequences of the three peptide chains (named A, B and C), which are very short in this example but usually span multiple lines.
- ATOM records
- describe the coordinates of the atoms that are part of the protein. For example, the first ATOM line above describes the alpha-N atom of the first residue of peptide chain A, which is a proline residue; the first three floating point numbers are its x, y and z coordinates and are in units of Ångströms. The next three columns are the occupancy, temperature factor, and the element name, respectively.
- HETATM records
- describe coordinates of hetero-atoms, that is those atoms which are not part of the protein molecule.
Molecular visualization software capable of displaying PDB files
- SAMSON
- Athena
- BALLView
- Bioblender
- CCP4MG
- (UCSF) Chimera
- Cn3D
- Coot
- CueMol
- QuteMol
- Gabedit
- Materials and Processes Simulations (MAPS) platform
- Jmol
- Molden
- Molekel
- Open Visualization Tool(OVITO)
- PyMOL
- RasMol
- UGENE
- VisIt
- VMD
- WHAT IF
- Yasara
- Zeus molecular visualisation
- ePMV
- Discovery Studio
- ParaView
- UnityMol
3d Animation software capable of displaying PDB files
- Blender (with appropriate extension installed)
- Houdini
- three.js