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Helen Berman
Professor
Director. Protein Data Bank
Rutgers University
Department of Chemistry
610 Taylor Road. Wright Lab
Rutgers University
Piscataway. N. J. 08854
(732) 445-4667. FAX - 4320
berman@rcsb.rutgers.edu |
Nucleic acid and protein structure. crystallography. biological databases
Our goal is to understand the structural properties of biological molecules
and to relate these structures to their biological functions. Our work on
nucleic acids has focused on the effects of base modification of the structure
and on the interrelationships of hydration structure. crystal packing. and
conformation. Our studies of DNA-protein complexes will help to elucidate the
principles that underlie interactions between these macromolecules. Studies on
collagen peptides have allowed us to define the structure of the triple helix at
atomic resolution and to understand the role of water in mediating
intermolecular interactions.
The PDB is the single international repository for the processing and
distribution of 3-D macromolecular structure data primarily determined
experimentally by X-ray crystallography and NMR.
Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (http://www.rcsb.org/)
The Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB) is a non-profit
consortium dedicated to improving our understanding of the function of
biological systems through an understanding of 3-dimensional biological
macromolecular structure.
We have continued the development of a relational database of three
dimensional structures of nucleic acids and their constituents. The database has
been expanded to include protein-nucleic acid complexes. A wide variety of
reports can be created. including tables and graphs of structural and
statistical information about nucleic acids. An electronic newsletter is
published on a bimonthly basis and is sent to users around the world. We have
developed a forms based interface that allows for simple queries using the World
Wide Web. We have also developed a dictionary of the standard geometry of
nucleic acids which is used by this project to validate structures and has been
incorporated into X-PLOR.
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