Re: [ccp4bb] domain boundary, new fold, structure-based sequence alignment

2009-10-19 Thread Eugene Krissinel
On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Shaun Lott s.l...@auckland.ac.nz wrote:

 In my experience, DALI can be better than SSM at detecting distant
 structural similarities.


this is interesting. Do you take into account that, in difference of DALI,
SSM
has a control on the remoteness of structural hits that it delivers? By
default,
it looks only at fairly similar hits. It grabs more hits as you pull the
similarity
threshold down. And if you set that similarity threshold zero, nearly every
query
gathers half of PDB as potential targets - because small features are shared
between many structures.

I would be very curious to see an example where SSM *is not able* to catch
something that DALI catches - leaving aside SSM limitations like presence
of secondary structure and having at least 2-3 SSEs in the common motif.

Eugene


 You might also want to try CE. To decide if a fold
 is 'new' rather than 'old but decorated' often boils down to a somewhat
 subjective call, but asking Alexei Murzin is as good a way as any to decide
 :-)

 For domain definition, try http://pdomains.sdsc.edu/ which offers a handy
 interface for comparing a number of different methods for automatic domain
 calling.

 hope this helps

 Shaun



[ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Sylvia Fanucchi
  

Dear all

I have been refining my structure using refmac5 restrained refinement
and the model currently has an R-factor of 0.19. What is concerning me
is that there is quite a big discrepancy between the Rfree and the
R-factor, with the Rfree being around 0.27. Furthermore, after about 10
rounds of refinement, the R-free actually starts to increase slightly
although the R-factor continues to decrease. Does this mean that there
is significant bias in my model? Does anybody know how I could go about
addressing this problem? 

Thanks for any help :-)

Sylvia Fanucchi Ph.D

Protein Structure-Function Research Unit
East Campus, Gate House Room 416
School of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg 2050
South Africa

Tel: +27 (11) 717-6348 Fax: +27 (11) 717-6351 
E-mail: sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za mailto:sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za  

 


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Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Ian Tickle
Hi Sylvia

You didn't make it clear on what basis you think the discrepancy between
R and Rfree is too big, since the Rfree you would expect to get if the
refinement were bias-free depends a lot on a number of factors such as
the resolution, the data completeness, what parameters you are refining,
what restraints you are using, whether the restraint weights are
optimal, the solvent content etc.  So to judge whether Rfree is indeed
higher than would be expected I would need to know a lot more about the
refinement.  Otherwise it's a bit like asking how long does a piece of
string have to be? - I would need to know the purpose of the piece of
string!

Also Rfree is only meaningful at convergence at refinement (you may as
well ignore all other printed values - they are worthless!).  So it's
not meaningful to compare Rfree during a refinement with the final value
at convergence.  It's only meaningful to compare Rfree values obtained
at convergence of refinements done under different conditions, for
example, different parameterisation, different weights, different no of
waters (provided only that you don't use different X-ray data or
restraints).

Cheers

-- Ian

 -Original Message-
 From: owner-ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk [mailto:owner-ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk]
On
 Behalf Of Sylvia Fanucchi
 Sent: 19 October 2009 13:49
 To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
 Subject: how to improve Rfree?
 
 
 
 Dear all
 
 I have been refining my structure using refmac5 restrained refinement
and
 the model currently has an R-factor of 0.19. What is concerning me is
that
 there is quite a big discrepancy between the Rfree and the R-factor,
with
 the Rfree being around 0.27. Furthermore, after about 10 rounds of
 refinement, the R-free actually starts to increase slightly although
the
 R-factor continues to decrease. Does this mean that there is
significant
 bias in my model? Does anybody know how I could go about addressing
this
 problem?
 
 Thanks for any help :-)
 
 Sylvia Fanucchi Ph.D
 
 Protein Structure-Function Research Unit
 East Campus, Gate House Room 416
 School of Molecular and Cell Biology
 University of the Witwatersrand
 Johannesburg 2050
 South Africa
 
 Tel: +27 (11) 717-6348 Fax: +27 (11) 717-6351
 E-mail: sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za mailto:sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za
 
 
 
 This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is
confidential.
 If you have received this communication in error, please notify us
 immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or
 disseminate this communication without the permission of the
University.
 Only authorized signatories are competent to enter into agreements on
 behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the
content
 of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may
 contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not
 necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the
Witwatersrand,
 Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are
 subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing
to
 the contrary.



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Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Vellieux Frederic

Dear Sylvia,

The discrepancy is only 8% and that is acceptable (you may be able to 
get the Rfree lower by changing the refinement program for the ultimate 
rounds of refinement, or by using TLS refinement if you don't do that 
already --- you don't mention what refinement program you are using). 
WRT your question concerning the increase in Rfree: once you have the R 
and Rfree as far down as they can be, there's only one way they can go: 
back up. Also, the aim of refinement is not to minimize R and Rfree but 
to get a model that matches best all available information. So checking 
the values of R and Rfree is not sufficient. Is the geometry acceptable?


HTH,

Fred.

Sylvia Fanucchi wrote:


Dear all

I have been refining my structure using refmac5 restrained refinement 
and the model currently has an R-factor of 0.19. What is concerning me 
is that there is quite a big discrepancy between the Rfree and the 
R-factor, with the Rfree being around 0.27. Furthermore, after about 
10 rounds of refinement, the R-free actually starts to increase 
slightly although the R-factor continues to decrease. Does this mean 
that there is significant bias in my model? Does anybody know how I 
could go about addressing this problem?


Thanks for any help J

**Sylvia Fanucchi Ph.D**

**Protein Structure-Function Research Unit**
East Campus, Gate House Room 416
School of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg 2050
South Africa

Tel: +27 (11) 717-6348 Fax: +27 (11) 717-6351
E-mail: sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za mailto:sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za 

 

This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is 
confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please 
notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not 
copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the 
University. Only authorized signatories are competent to enter into 
agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised 
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University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the 
author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The 
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between 
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the University agrees in writing to the contrary.




attachment: Frederic_Vellieux.vcf

[ccp4bb] constrained monomer

2009-10-19 Thread cedric bauvois
Dear all,

what are the best criteria to say that one monomer is more constrained by
the packing than another? surfaces analyses by PISA? How to be sure that the
observed differences are significant?


Thanks in advance.

Cedric Bauvois


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Ian Tickle
Hi Sylvia:

 -Original Message-
 From: Sylvia Fanucchi [mailto:sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za]
 Sent: 19 October 2009 15:06
 To: Ian Tickle
 Subject: RE: how to improve Rfree?
 
 Hi Ian
 
 Yes, sorry, admittedly this is the first time I'm doing this and I'm
not
 sure of all the checks that need to be made. I have been checking the
 validity of my model in coot.
 
 I've been under the impression that the initial factor that will tell
 you whether the refinement has been any good and whether the model is
on
 the right track is the R-factor. I figured that once I'd got that to a
 satisfactory number I would run the model through validating
programmes
 such as procheck or molprobity. Am I missing something fundamental?
This
 would not surprise me since I am very new to this and have essentially
 taught myself most of everything I know.

Procheck/Molprobity is a good start for geometric validation!  It's also
important to look for obvious unexplained peaks in the difference
Fourier since good agreement of the model with the X-ray data is also
important (Coot will help with this); and there are programs which list
the real-space density correlation coefficients and/or density RMSD that
may help identify problem areas.  The refinement program often also has
tables and/or graphs of other useful statistics such as structure factor
correlation coefficients and log-likelihood, as well as R factors of
course.

 My resolution is 1.6A although I have cut it to 1.8A to bring the
 R-factor down. I've been performing restrained refinement in refmac5
 using the default settings. The solvent content is 40%

An Rfree-R difference of 0.08 at 1.8 Ang does indeed seem somewhat high,
though the low solvent content may go some way towards explaining it
(since it means you will have fewer data in comparison with other
structures of similar size and resolution).  In addition if your overall
completeness is say  0.95 (or  0.8 in the outer shell) that won't
help.  However I assume you mean Rmerge not Rwork: the purpose of
refinement is not to reduce the R factor but to get the model which best
explains the observations (including the restraints), and also makes
sense in comparison with the body of other structures already
determined: rejecting data on the basis of Rwork and/or Rfree may not be
the best way to achieve this!  Personally I reject data based only on
shell completeness ( 0.8) and mean I/sd(I) ( 1.5); I don't use Rmerge
for this - see recent BB discussions.

 Someone told me once that if the Rfree increased with successive
rounds
 of refinement while the R-factor decreased, something was very wrong
and
 that was why I was concerned.

If Rfree (or -LLfree) *ends up* being higher with one refined model /
parameterisation / weighting scheme compared with another (with the same
data), then one would reject the first model.  However what you can't do
is compare the models on the basis of the intermediate Rfree/LLfree
values.

Cheers

-- Ian


Disclaimer
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Astex Therapeutics Ltd monitors, controls and protects all its messaging 
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accepts no liability for damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email. 
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basis that the Company is not liable for any such alteration or any 
consequences thereof.
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Cambridge CB4 0QA under number 3751674


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Ed Pozharski
*If* you are using WEIGHT AUTO, check the RMSDbonds.  You don't say what
your resolution is, but I assume it's in lower 2.0s.  I've seen refmac5
in some cases produce somewhat unreasonable geometries (i.e.
RMSDbonds0.025A) at such medium resolution and accordingly, large
R/Rfree gap.  If this is the case, one suggestion is to determine the
optimal weight manually (e.g. the one that minimizes Rfree).  This IMLE
does not lower the Rfree, but increases R, thus closing the gap.

You may also consider NCS restraints if you have multiple copies.

Does anyone already have the PDB-wide R/Rfree gap versus resolution data
(it does not seem that the PDB maintains one)?

Ed.

On Mon, 2009-10-19 at 14:49 +0200, Sylvia Fanucchi wrote:
 
 Dear all
 
 I have been refining my structure using refmac5 restrained refinement
 and the model currently has an R-factor of 0.19. What is concerning me
 is that there is quite a big discrepancy between the Rfree and the
 R-factor, with the Rfree being around 0.27. Furthermore, after about
 10 rounds of refinement, the R-free actually starts to increase
 slightly although the R-factor continues to decrease. Does this mean
 that there is significant bias in my model? Does anybody know how I
 could go about addressing this problem? 
 
 Thanks for any help J
 
 Sylvia Fanucchi Ph.D
 
 Protein Structure-Function Research Unit
 East Campus, Gate House Room 416
 School of Molecular and Cell Biology
 University of the Witwatersrand
 Johannesburg 2050
 South Africa
 
 Tel: +27 (11) 717-6348 Fax: +27 (11) 717-6351 
 E-mail: sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za 
 
 
  
 
 
 This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If 
 you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately 
 and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this 
 communication without the permission of the University. Only authorized 
 signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the 
 University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message 
 may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal 
 views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and 
 opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements 
 between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless 
 the University agrees in writing to the contrary.
 
-- 


[ccp4bb] Postdoctoral Position @ Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

2009-10-19 Thread Hiro Furukawa
Applications are invited for postdoctoral positions at Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory (CSHL) from highly enthusiastic individuals with strong interest
in utilizing structural, electrophysiological, and biochemical approaches to
study fundamental problems in ion and substrate transports across the
membrane. Our biological goal is to understand molecular basis for synaptic
transmission and neurological disorders and diseases. We use x-ray
crystallography to obtain atomic structures of target membrane/glyco
proteins and test structure-based functional hypotheses by various
techniques including electrophysiology, analytical centrifugation, and
fluorescence assay. We are equipped with a state-of-the-art facility to
conduct membrane/glyco protein crystallography and functional studies
including a high-throughput protein screening system, an automated
crystallization screening device, a recently updated home x-ray source,
electrophysiology rigs, and other setups such as isothermal titration
colorimetry device. CSHL is also located within 30 min driving distance from
the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Most importantly, a highly collaborative environment at CSHL provides a
unique opportunity for postdocs to interact with scientists from various
fields including cancer biology, neuroscience, and plant biology. Candidates
must hold (or soon expect to hold) PhD in biochemistry, molecular biology,
biophysics or related fields. Strong background in molecular biology,
biochemistry, large-scale protein expression in eukaryotic and prokaryotic
cells, and purification of membrane/glyco proteins is desired. Experience in
x-ray crystallography or electrophysiology is desirable but not necessary.
For more information, please check the laboratory website
(http://www.cshl.edu/public/SCIENCE/furukawa.html) and contact me via email.
Please send CV, a summary of research experience and interest, and three
references to Hiro Furukawa by email at furuk...@cshl.edu


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Engin Ozkan

Does anyone already have the PDB-wide R/Rfree gap versus resolution data
(it does not seem that the PDB maintains one)?

Ed.
   
The friendly people in Uppsala has something here by the name Harry 
Plotter: http://xray.bmc.uu.se/gerard/supmat/eds/plotter.html

This might be somewhat dated now.

Engin

--
Engin Özkan
Post-doctoral Scholar
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Dept of Molecular and Cellular Physiology
279 Campus Drive, Beckman Center B173
Stanford School of Medicine
Stanford, CA 94305
ph: (650)-498-7111


[ccp4bb] Available Postdoctoral Position

2009-10-19 Thread Emmanuel Skordalakes
A post-doctoral position is immediately available in the laboratory of  
Dr. E. Skordalakes at The Wistar Institute, UPENN to study protein  
nucleic acid assemblies that participate in the replication and  
maintenance of telomeres. We are looking for highly motivated  
candidates that have recently acquired a Ph.D. in biochemistry and/or  
macromolecular crystallography.  Additional information regarding our  
research program can be found at the laboratory web site(s) http://www.chem.upenn.edu/chem/research/faculty.php?id=52 
   http://www.wistar.org/research_facilities/skordalakes/research.htm


Interested applicants should submit a curriculum vitae and three  
letters of recommendation to Emmanuel Skordalakes at sko...@wistar.org





Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Ed Pozharski
  My resolution is 1.6A although I have cut it to 1.8A to bring the
  R-factor down. I've been performing restrained refinement in refmac5
  using the default settings. The solvent content is 40%

This sounds fundamentally wrong.  Even the Rmerge reduction by cutting
resolution practice is questionable due to strong dependence of the
Rmerge on redundancy, but to cut resolution to get better Rfactor in
refinement...  Nobody throws away the lower concentration (and thus
noisier) data in Bradford assay, although I am sure that the appropriate
R-factor would definitely go down.


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Phil Evans
I agree. It cannot be said too often that the object of refinement is  
not to minimise the R-factor!


( while I'm at it, freeR has nothing to do with model bias (which is  
largely imaginary anyway, only a problem with low resolution molecular  
replacement))


Phil

On 19 Oct 2009, at 17:07, Ed Pozharski wrote:


My resolution is 1.6A although I have cut it to 1.8A to bring the
R-factor down. I've been performing restrained refinement in refmac5
using the default settings. The solvent content is 40%


This sounds fundamentally wrong.  Even the Rmerge reduction by  
cutting

resolution practice is questionable due to strong dependence of the
Rmerge on redundancy, but to cut resolution to get better Rfactor in
refinement...  Nobody throws away the lower concentration (and thus
noisier) data in Bradford assay, although I am sure that the  
appropriate

R-factor would definitely go down.


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Engin Ozkan

Sorry, I gave the wrong link, the R/Rfree gap is reported here:

http://xray.bmc.uu.se/gerard/supmat/rfree2000/plotter.html

Engin

On 10/19/09 9:13 AM, Ed Pozharski wrote:

Looks great, thanks.  But it doesn't actually report R/Rfree gap, or am
I missing something?

Ed.

On Mon, 2009-10-19 at 08:14 -0700, Engin Ozkan wrote:
   

Does anyone already have the PDB-wide R/Rfree gap versus resolution data
(it does not seem that the PDB maintains one)?

Ed.

   

The friendly people in Uppsala has something here by the name Harry
Plotter: http://xray.bmc.uu.se/gerard/supmat/eds/plotter.html
This might be somewhat dated now.

Engin

 



--
Engin Özkan
Post-doctoral Scholar
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Dept of Molecular and Cellular Physiology
279 Campus Drive, Beckman Center B173
Stanford School of Medicine
Stanford, CA 94305
ph: (650)-498-7111


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Pavel Afonine




Hi Sivia,

you say the resolution is 1.8A, and your R-work=0.19 and R-free=0.27. 

Here is the distribution of R-factors for structures in PDB
deposited at similar resolution (in range between 1.75A and 1.85A):

Histogram of Rwork
for all model in PDB at resolution 1.75-1.85:
 0.114 - 0.130  : 6
 0.130 - 0.147  : 48
 0.147 - 0.163  : 221
 0.163 - 0.180  : 484
 0.180 - 0.196  : 718   your structure
 0.196 - 0.212  : 508
 0.212 - 0.229  : 271
 0.229 - 0.245  : 105
 0.245 - 0.262  : 20
 0.262 - 0.278  : 7
Histogram of Rfree for all model in PDB at resolution 1.75-1.85:
 0.153 - 0.171  : 17
 0.171 - 0.190  : 127
 0.190 - 0.208  : 380
 0.208 - 0.227  : 647
 0.227 - 0.245  : 648
 0.245 - 0.263  : 360
 0.263 - 0.282  : 132   your structure
 0.282 -
0.300  : 64
 0.300 - 0.319  : 10
 0.319 - 0.337  : 3
Histogram of Rfree-Rwork for all model in PDB at resolution 1.75-1.85:
 0.001 - 0.013  : 41
 0.013 - 0.025  : 336
 0.025 - 0.036  : 852
 0.036 - 0.048  : 693
 0.048 - 0.060  : 309
 0.060 - 0.072  : 98
 0.072 - 0.084  : 40   your structure
 0.084 -
0.095  : 11
 0.095 - 0.107  : 4
 0.107 - 0.119  : 4

You also mentioned you cut the data off (the actual resolution is
1.6A). Doing so just to improve R-factor doesn't seem like a good idea.


Similar histograms for structures at around 1.6A resolution:

Histogram of Rwork
for all model in PDB at resolution 1.55-1.65:
 0.099 - 0.119  : 5
 0.119 - 0.138  : 26
 0.138 - 0.158  : 132
 0.158 - 0.177  : 349
 0.177 - 0.197  : 447   your structure
 0.197 -
0.217  : 281
 0.217 - 0.236  : 129
 0.236 - 0.256  : 17
 0.256 - 0.275  : 6
 0.275 - 0.295  : 1
Histogram of Rfree for all model in PDB at resolution 1.55-1.65:
 0.137 - 0.156  : 6
 0.156 - 0.175  : 45
 0.175 - 0.195  : 208
 0.195 - 0.214  : 391
 0.214 - 0.233  : 395
 0.233 - 0.253  : 200
 0.253 - 0.272  : 96   your structure
 0.272 -
0.291  : 37
 0.291 - 0.311  : 12
 0.311 - 0.330  : 3
Histogram of Rfree-Rwork for all model in PDB at resolution 1.55-1.65:
 0.001 - 0.010  : 27
 0.010 - 0.019  : 217
 0.019 - 0.029  : 374
 0.029 - 0.038  : 350
 0.038 - 0.047  : 233
 0.047 - 0.056  : 106
 0.056 - 0.065  : 49
 0.065 - 0.075  : 23
 0.075 - 0.084  : 10   your structure
 0.084 -
0.093  : 4


Pavel.




On 10/19/09 5:49 AM, Sylvia Fanucchi wrote:

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  Dear all
  I have been
refining my structure using
refmac5 restrained refinement and the model currently has an R-factor
of 0.19. What
is concerning me is that there is quite a big discrepancy between the
Rfree and
the R-factor, with the Rfree being around 0.27. Furthermore, after
about 10
rounds of refinement, the R-free actually starts to increase slightly
although
the R-factor continues to decrease. Does this mean that there is
significant
bias in my model? Does anybody know how I could go about addressing
this
problem? 
  Thanks for
any help J
  
  Sylvia
Fanucchi Ph.D
  Protein
Structure-Function Research Unit
East Campus, Gate House Room 416
School of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of the Witwatersrand
  Johannesburg 2050
  South Africa
  Tel:
+27 (11) 717-6348
Fax: +27 (11) 717-6351 
E-mail: sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za 
  
   
  
  

  

This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorized signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.

  

  





Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Eleanor Dodson

This is a perennial Q, and one without a good answer.

There are some pretty uncontriversible facts.
If you have atomic resolution your R and Rfree will be pretty close - 
90-95% of data gives you a pretty well correct structure and the FreeR 
will reflect that..


If you have low resolution and you get the spacegroup wrong - eg call 
P3122 P31 and assign the FreeR set without taking account of the extra 
symmetry your R and Rfree will be pretty close!  but that doesnt mean 
you have a better structure..


If you have non-crystallographic symmetry the effects are uncertain, but 
in many cases this too gives you a lower than expected FreeR value,  and 
again, that doesnt mean you have a better structure..


In general the difference in R and Rfree should be correlated with the 
resolution, but there doesnt seem to be any absolute level of 
expectation; thee are toomany other variables to consider..

Eleanor



Pavel Afonine wrote:

Hi Sivia,

you say the resolution is 1.8A, and your R-work=0.19 and R-free=0.27.

Here is the distribution of R-factors for structures in PDB deposited at similar 
resolution (in range between 1.75A and 1.85A):


Histogram of Rwork for all model in PDB at resolution 1.75-1.85:
 0.114 - 0.130  : 6
 0.130 - 0.147  : 48
 0.147 - 0.163  : 221
 0.163 - 0.180  : 484
 0.180 - 0.196  : 718   your structure
 0.196 - 0.212  : 508
 0.212 - 0.229  : 271
 0.229 - 0.245  : 105
 0.245 - 0.262  : 20
 0.262 - 0.278  : 7
Histogram of Rfree for all model in PDB at resolution 1.75-1.85:
 0.153 - 0.171  : 17
 0.171 - 0.190  : 127
 0.190 - 0.208  : 380
 0.208 - 0.227  : 647
 0.227 - 0.245  : 648
 0.245 - 0.263  : 360
 0.263 - 0.282  : 132   your structure
 0.282 - 0.300  : 64
 0.300 - 0.319  : 10
 0.319 - 0.337  : 3
Histogram of Rfree-Rwork for all model in PDB at resolution 1.75-1.85:
 0.001 - 0.013  : 41
 0.013 - 0.025  : 336
 0.025 - 0.036  : 852
 0.036 - 0.048  : 693
 0.048 - 0.060  : 309
 0.060 - 0.072  : 98
 0.072 - 0.084  : 40   your structure
 0.084 - 0.095  : 11
 0.095 - 0.107  : 4
 0.107 - 0.119  : 4

You also mentioned you cut the data off (the actual resolution is 1.6A). Doing 
so just to improve R-factor doesn't seem like a good idea.


Similar histograms for structures at around 1.6A resolution:

Histogram of Rwork for all model in PDB at resolution 1.55-1.65:
 0.099 - 0.119  : 5
 0.119 - 0.138  : 26
 0.138 - 0.158  : 132
 0.158 - 0.177  : 349
 0.177 - 0.197  : 447   your structure
 0.197 - 0.217  : 281
 0.217 - 0.236  : 129
 0.236 - 0.256  : 17
 0.256 - 0.275  : 6
 0.275 - 0.295  : 1
Histogram of Rfree for all model in PDB at resolution 1.55-1.65:
 0.137 - 0.156  : 6
 0.156 - 0.175  : 45
 0.175 - 0.195  : 208
 0.195 - 0.214  : 391
 0.214 - 0.233  : 395
 0.233 - 0.253  : 200
 0.253 - 0.272  : 96   your structure
 0.272 - 0.291  : 37
 0.291 - 0.311  : 12
 0.311 - 0.330  : 3
Histogram of Rfree-Rwork for all model in PDB at resolution 1.55-1.65:
 0.001 - 0.010  : 27
 0.010 - 0.019  : 217
 0.019 - 0.029  : 374
 0.029 - 0.038  : 350
 0.038 - 0.047  : 233
 0.047 - 0.056  : 106
 0.056 - 0.065  : 49
 0.065 - 0.075  : 23
 0.075 - 0.084  : 10   your structure
 0.084 - 0.093  : 4


Pavel.




On 10/19/09 5:49 AM, Sylvia Fanucchi wrote:
 Web Bug from cid:part1.0305.09050909@lbl.gov

 Dear all

 I have been refining my structure using refmac5 restrained refinement and the 
 model currently has an R-factor of 0.19. What is concerning me is that there 
 is quite a big discrepancy between the Rfree and the R-factor, with the Rfree 
 being around 0.27. Furthermore, after about 10 rounds of refinement, the 
 R-free actually starts to increase slightly although the R-factor continues to 
 decrease. Does this mean that there is significant bias in my model? Does 
 anybody know how I could go about addressing this problem?


 Thanks for any help J

 **Sylvia Fanucchi Ph.D**

 **Protein Structure-Function Research Unit**
 East Campus, Gate House Room 416
 School of Molecular and Cell Biology
 University of the Witwatersrand
 Johannesburg 2050
 South Africa

 Tel: +27 (11) 717-6348 Fax: +27 (11) 717-6351
 E-mail: sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za mailto:sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za 

  

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Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Ian Tickle
 ( while I'm at it, freeR has nothing to do with model bias (which is
 largely imaginary anyway, only a problem with low resolution molecular
 replacement))
 
 Phil

Phil, I understand what you're saying but 'model bias' in this context
has a wider meaning than just failing to rebuild the chain correctly
from an MR model at low resolution, and using this wider meaning Rfree
has everything to do with model bias.  For example, if I refine a high
res structure with 1 Ang data using an isotropic-only B-factor model,
then Rfree ( Rwork) will almost certainly be higher than you would
expect using the optimal parameterisation of 3 xyz's + 6 ADPs per atom
with the appropriate restraints (whatever the optimum happens to be).
Bias is defined as 'difference from expectation', so the isotropic model
is almost certainly biased, as reflected in the higher-than-expected
Rwork  Rfree.  I'm well aware that bias by itself is not necessarily a
bad thing particularly when a biased estimator happens to have the least
error (difference from the truth), but I doubt one can claim that in
this example.

Cheers

-- Ian


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Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Ian Tickle
 If you have non-crystallographic symmetry the effects are uncertain,
but
 in many cases this too gives you a lower than expected FreeR value,
and
 again, that doesnt mean you have a better structure..
 
 In general the difference in R and Rfree should be correlated with the
 resolution, but there doesnt seem to be any absolute level of
 expectation; thee are toomany other variables to consider..
 Eleanor

I agree: in simple cases with good medium-high res data, given Rwork you
can predict Rfree within the expected error in Rfree (based only on the
size of the test set).  The problem is that real life is never simple! -
and NCS really messes things up!

Cheers

-- Ian


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Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Ian Tickle
 Bias is defined as 'difference from expectation', so the isotropic
model
 is almost certainly biased, as reflected in the higher-than-expected
 Rwork  Rfree.

Phil, sorry in my rush to go home I explained that badly: bias is
defined as 'difference between the expected and true values'.  In this
case the expectation is the Rfree (or other statistic) that you would
expect to get based on the isotropic model, and we're assuming that the
optimally parameterised ADP model (whatever it is) is the one closest to
the truth: this may of course be a rash assumption since even the
optimal parameterisation may well not explain all the errors in the
model.  The bias in Rfree for the isotropic model is the difference
between these.

Cheers

-- Ian


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[ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Dr. Mark Mayer

You can also pick thin shells with SFCHECK

and with 12-fold NCS the referees will likely not be kind if you dont!!!
--

Mark


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Barnali Chaudhuri
On 10/19/09 2:30 PM, Vellieux Frederic frederic.velli...@ibs.fr wrote:

One of these people (Bart Hazes
 I think, correct me if I'm wrong) suggests to take reflections for the
 R-free as thin shells in reciprocal space. The thin shell is omitted
 completely from the target for refinement (I suppose omitting a shell of
 data completely will also have deleterious effects on the refinement, I
 don't know by how much). Problem is, none of the data processing
 programs or suites of programs has implemented this as far as I know.

You can use Dataman from Uppsala Software Factory:

http://xray.bmc.uu.se/usf/

Neel


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Dunten, Pete W.
But see Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr. 2006 Mar;62(Pt 3):227-38. Epub 
2006 Feb 22.
on why thin shells aren't necessarily the answer.

And note neither program mentioned, dataman nor sftools, will allow you to 
extend the set
of shells to higher resolution if you want to follow the practice of preserving 
your
existing R-free set.  Ian Tickle has argued there is no need to transfer the 
free flags
from one data set to another, so that may not be an issue.

Pete

-Original Message-
From: CCP4 bulletin board on behalf of Dr. Mark Mayer
Sent: Mon 10/19/2009 11:57 AM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?
 
You can also pick thin shells with SFCHECK

and with 12-fold NCS the referees will likely not be kind if you dont!!!
-- 

Mark


Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Vellieux Frederic
To properly omit reflections from the Rfree calculations can be done 
using reciprocal space masks as implemented in the program WEIGHTS from 
the DEMON/ANGEL program suite (Vellieux, Hunt, Roy  Read [1995], J. 
Appl. Cryst. 28, 347-351). I don't have the time to do it. But people 
are welcome to request the program (they closed the ftp site at our end 
a few years ago), it is distributed with the free software foundation's 
general public license. So the program can be hacked to get the relevant 
code out, to be included in other programs that alre also distributed 
with the GPL. These are the only restrictions. Otherwise the algorithm 
can be coded anew into software packages that are not distributed with 
the GPL.


Fred.
attachment: Frederic_Vellieux.vcf

Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread Bart Hazes
The RFREE SHELL command in sftools is another way to select thin shells. 
However, for the purist there is no clean way of getting rid of 
correlations between the Rwork and Rfree sets that I know of.


To do it properly, the thickness of the thin shell should be larger than 
the radius where the G-function has strong features. In practice that 
makes the shells so thick that you can have only a few which likely 
causes artifacts. Even then, the reflections at the edge of the shells 
are still contaminated so you'd have to exclude the ones near the edge 
from both the Rwork and Rfree sets. I'm pretty sure that there has been 
a publication long ago on thick shells (It may have been Ian, Phil or 
some other CCP4BB regular).


An improvement would be to go from shells to donuts, basically the 
intersection of the spherical shell and a plane through the origin 
perpendicular to the NCS rotational symmetry axis. One step further is 
Fred's suggestion to use the explicit NCS relationships to select groups 
of NCS-contaminated reflections, but only works if the NCS symmetry 
forms a closed group. One step further again would be to use an explicit 
low resolution G-function model to find the strongest NCS correlations 
and only group those together.


Enough fodder for purists to fight over but when sftools users ask me, 
my general response includes the fact that the higher your NCS the 
greater the NCS-contamination problem, but also the smaller the model 
bias/overfitting problem, assuming NCS restraints are used appropriately 
in refinement. As a reviewer I would have a problem with authors patting 
their backs for a small Rwork-Rfree difference without noting the impact 
of NCS. But if they report a low Rwork-Rfree difference and comment on 
the fact that the difference is likely underestimated due to NCS effects 
I have no problems, with or without thin shells, as long as I feel the 
refinement protocol and final model are acceptable for the biological 
interpretations that they make.


Bart

Vellieux Frederic wrote:

Hi Ian ( ccp4bb'ers),

NCS ties reflections in reciprocal space by the interference 
G-function effect. Nothing more. So you get an R-free value that is 
lower than if you don't have NCS. One should be aware of that, and 
referees should be aware of that.


I currently have a structure that has 12-fold NCS in the asymmetric 
unit. The free R-factor is lower than the R-factor. I expect that 
future referees will not view that kindly.


A number of people have suggested to use different approaches to get 
rid of this reciprocal space binding effect. One of these people (Bart 
Hazes I think, correct me if I'm wrong) suggests to take reflections 
for the R-free as thin shells in reciprocal space. The thin shell is 
omitted completely from the target for refinement (I suppose omitting 
a shell of data completely will also have deleterious effects on the 
refinement, I don't know by how much). Problem is, none of the data 
processing programs or suites of programs has implemented this as far 
as I know. A better approach would be to use the NCS operator (the 
transpose and the inverse of the rotation matrices in fact, including 
the identity matrix for all cases including the cases where the only 
NCS is 1-fold NCS, i.e. the presence of solvent in the asymmetric unit 
or unit cell) to select the subset of reflections that are going to be 
omitted from the refinement target: take one reflection, select all 
equivalents that are bound to it by the interference effect, and 
repeat the process until you have reached the required number of 
reflections to be omitted. But this requires serious programming... 
And someone willing to modify all data processing suites to include 
this approach. But that would satisfy referees because it is the only 
approach that is valid.


Fred.

Ian Tickle wrote:

The problem is that real life is never simple! -
and NCS really messes things up!

Cheers

-- Ian
  


--



Bart Hazes (Associate Professor)
Dept. of Medical Microbiology  Immunology
University of Alberta
1-15 Medical Sciences Building
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada, T6G 2H7
phone:  1-780-492-0042
fax:1-780-492-7521




[ccp4bb] Difficult molecular replacement in R32 with pseudo translation

2009-10-19 Thread Jerry McCully

Dear All:

I got a problem with a data set in R32 space group with a resolution of 
2.6.
Pointless indicated that the space group was R32 and phenix triage showed that 
there was a pseudotranslation in the ASU.

My protein is a hexamer and the matthew coeff. showed that there should just be 
two monomers in one ASU of R32.

However, phaser in R32 and Molrep in R32 gave different solutions because 
Molrep used the pseudo-translation. I am not sure which one was correct because 
refinement of both solutions get stuck around 35% for Rfactor.

I tried the molecular replacement in P1 and I got good solutions in Phaser. I 
think they are correct solutions because my protein was a hexamer and the 
crystal packing in P1 was formed by hexamers.

  How can I get correct solutions in R32 and finish the refinement?

  Many thanks in advance.

Jerry McCully



 

 
  
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Re: [ccp4bb] Difficult molecular replacement in R32 with pseudo translation

2009-10-19 Thread Ethan Merritt
On Monday 19 October 2009 12:43:43 Jerry McCully wrote:
 
 Dear All:
 
 I got a problem with a data set in R32 space group with a resolution 
 of 2.6.
 Pointless indicated that the space group was R32 and phenix triage showed 
 that there was a pseudotranslation in the ASU.
 
 My protein is a hexamer and the matthew coeff. showed that there should just 
 be two monomers in one ASU of R32.
 
 However, phaser in R32 and Molrep in R32 gave different solutions because 
 Molrep used the pseudo-translation. I am not sure which one was correct 
 because refinement of both solutions get stuck around 35% for Rfactor.
 
 I tried the molecular replacement in P1 and I got good solutions in Phaser. I 
 think they are correct solutions because my protein was a hexamer and the 
 crystal packing in P1 was formed by hexamers.
 
   How can I get correct solutions in R32 and finish the refinement?


Did you try using the hexamer as your molecular replacement probe?


-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742


Re: [ccp4bb] mammalian cell culture on IMAC

2009-10-19 Thread Oganesyan, Vaheh
Brad,

 

It looks like the chelator is a reducing agent added to media for
preservation, I guess.

 

The cure is not found yet. I'm just loading ~300 ml per one 5 ml
column and it so far serves me well.

 

The IEX approach did not work well. I've lost more than with IMAC after
3X dilution (with properly chosen resin and buffer pH).

 

Your idea works fine: that's why I limit load to 300 ml.

 

Thank you.

 

___ 
Vaheh 



From: Brad Bennett [mailto:bradbennet...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 4:43 PM
To: Oganesyan, Vaheh
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] mammalian cell culture on IMAC

 

Hi Vaheh-
Well (gulp) you could dilute your solution say 2-10X with buffer with no
salt. You could try small volumes at first and see how dilute the [salt]
must be before your protein sticks to your IEX column.

So, what is in the media that is stripping off the Ni ions? A chelator
like EDTA? And you're sure it's not something more sinister like
stripping AND reducing the Ni? If the media formulation is proprietary,
you may never definitively know. But I wonder if you could add free
resin to a small portion of your solution, spin it down and run the
beads on a gel and detect your protein by silver stain or immunoblot?
If, whatever it is, is just stripping your resin, then maybe you could
pull down some of your target protein. Surely some Ni+ will get
chelated but maybe it's worth a shot? Maybe as long as you have plenty
of Ni-NTA, Ni-Sepharose or Talon hanging around, you could give this a
try.

You could try salting it out with saturating ammonium sulfate. Not
elegant but it should work and you could resuspend the pellet in
whatever buffer and volume you wanted.

Any other epitopes/affinity handles on this protein? Like Flag or HA?

HTH-
Brad

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Oganesyan, Vaheh
oganesy...@medimmune.com wrote:

In case of cell lysates this may be a good idea since you can adjust the
salt concentration in your sample. In case of secreted proteins it is
probably not so good since the media contains ~150 mM NaCl. In my case
this salt prevents protein from bindinq to Q column.

Thank you anyway.



From: CCP4 bulletin board on behalf of Dima Klenchin
Sent: Thu 10/8/2009 3:54 PM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] mammalian cell culture on IMAC





When mammalian cell culture is being loaded to GE HisTrap resin Ni ions
are being stripped off the resin, at least in my hands. Did any of you
have similar experience and if so what kind of work-around was found?
Volume is fairly large (3L) and concentration/dialysis have proven to
cause loss of desired protein.
Please share your positive experience.

I get this with insect cell lysates. The solution: load onto ion
exchanger
first - not for purification but to get rid of whatever strips Ni2+.
Crude
wash with 50 mM salt (or as high as your protein allows) followed by
step
elution with 0.5M salt (very few proteins do not elute at 0.5M) -- load
directly onto Ni-NTA. Solves the stripping problem 100%. (If you use
step
elution, make sure to NOT use weak exchangers or you will have pH shift
of
2-3 units). If the protein binds to cation-exchangers at pH 7, even
such a
crude step results in significant purification in itself. If, for some
reason, ion exchangers are not an option, load onto hydroxyapatite and
elute with phosphate. The downside to HA is that it has a lot less
capacity
than ion-exchangers and that it needs frequent repacking.

Good luck,

Dima






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Re: [ccp4bb] how to improve Rfree?

2009-10-19 Thread William Scott
Two very low-brow suggestions that might help:

1. Do a round of idealization in Refmac, to tighten up the geometry as
much as possible.  Then return to your current approach.

2.  Try using phenix.refine (with the same mtz, test reflections, latest
PDB, etc).  The difference can sometimes be rather dramatic, especially
after simulated annealing.

Best of luck.

Bill



On Mon, October 19, 2009 5:49 am, Sylvia Fanucchi wrote:


 Dear all

 I have been refining my structure using refmac5 restrained refinement
 and the model currently has an R-factor of 0.19. What is concerning me
 is that there is quite a big discrepancy between the Rfree and the
 R-factor, with the Rfree being around 0.27. Furthermore, after about 10
 rounds of refinement, the R-free actually starts to increase slightly
 although the R-factor continues to decrease. Does this mean that there
 is significant bias in my model? Does anybody know how I could go about
 addressing this problem?

 Thanks for any help :-)

 Sylvia Fanucchi Ph.D

 Protein Structure-Function Research Unit
 East Campus, Gate House Room 416
 School of Molecular and Cell Biology
 University of the Witwatersrand
 Johannesburg 2050
 South Africa

 Tel: +27 (11) 717-6348 Fax: +27 (11) 717-6351
 E-mail: sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za mailto:sylvia.fanuc...@wits.ac.za




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Re: [ccp4bb] crystallography teaching advice: f(S) ?

2009-10-19 Thread William G. Scott

On Oct 7, 2009, at 1:56 AM, Kevin Cowtan wrote:


William G. Scott wrote:

On Oct 6, 2009, at 1:32 AM, Morten Kjeldgaard wrote:

teleports the students across the hermeneutic circle ;-)
(As a consequence, I recommended the postmodernism generator  
website to the students:  http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/  )


It is easy to mock postmodernism,


Well, there is a reason for that ...


but it needs to be treated seriously.


Why?  Do historians likewise need to take Holocaust deniers seriously?


It is based on a valid set of critiques of the modern paradigm,


That is highly debatable.  Even the idea that there is such thing as a  
paradigm (modern, post-modern, or otherwise) is only an assertion  
(The idea originates from Thomas Kuhn, who started as a PhD physics  
student, presumably doing normal science and generalized when he  
defected to the sociology department. Social sciences slavishly aping  
what they wrongly perceived to be the aims and the methods of the  
physical sciences immediately latched on to the idea of paradigms,  
but that hardly translates into universal acceptance of the idea,  
especially amongst scientists.)


some of which have arisen from within science (notably the cognitive  
sciences, complex systems and QM).


I don't know much about the cognitive sciences beyond what Chomsky  
did, and I know nothing about complex systems.  I do know a little bit  
about QM, however, and it appears to me that the supposed need to  
revise our ideas about reality are based on a confusion about what  
probability is, along with an implicit rejection of indeterminism.  
Many of the classic problems don't arise if you don't posit a wave- 
particle duality, but instead ascribe primary reality to particles.   
(Chemists, not just physicists, deal with these supposed riddles all  
the time -- how can an unoccupied molecular orbital determine the  
stereochemistry of a reaction product if there are no electrons in it?  
-- but their world view isn't exactly placed in mortal danger of  
collapsing as a consequence).


While pomo reacts against the problems in the modern worldview, and  
in doing so overreacts going off into fantasy land, any useful 21st  
century philosophy of science needs to take the critiques of the  
modern worldview - which itself has been significantly shaped by the  
scientific revolution - very seriously indeed, otherwise it will end  
up being irrelevant. If scientists remain entrenched in the broken  
modern paradigm,


Again, I have yet to see any compelling evidence that it is at all  
broken. (The neo-liberal economic system that claims to be informed  
by this stuff and produces the likes of Tony Blair is another story,  
however.)


they will be increasingly unable to communicate with the outside  
world, and the pomo paradigm shift may become more deeply anti- 
science.


The failure of many scientists and scientific communicators to take  
an interest in philosophy of science and sociology


In my case at least, it isn't a question of failing to take an  
interest, but rather a complete sense of frustration when trying to  
communicate with people who insist on speaking utter jibberish.  The  
point of the postmodernism generator website is to show just how  
mechanical, arbitrary, and ultimately how vacuous this stuff really  
can be.


On a more serious level, we have the case of Sokal's Social Text  
Affair.  Sokal is a physicist who published a paper in the  
prestigious journal Social Text entitled Transgressing the  
Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.


The paper was a total spoof, but the editors and reviewers (none of  
which were qualified to pass judgement on quantum gravity) decided it  
was a great achievement and worthy of publication.  Then when he  
admitted the hoax, all hell broke loose.  cf:   http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/


have been a significant handicap in the countering of arguments from  
the creationists, IDers, and climate change deniers, who have  
(ironically and unwittingly in some cases) tapped into pomo rather  
more successfully. The pomo suspicion of arguments-from-authority  
threatens scientific funding and evidence-based policy making at a  
more general level.


However, the modern worldview is broken,


only if we start to accept this kind of proof by assertion ...

and the pomo paradigm shift may well be a juggernaught. We cannot  
stop it, we need to both understand it and respond constructively if  
we are going to advocate and communicate science.


The hermenutic circle is one starting point in understanding where  
pomo comes from. The idea that a text has a meaning is highly  
problematic and may well be dualistic.


Those last two sentences I have to confess kind of frighten and  
confuse me.


I think as scientists, the best we can rationally hope do is to engage  
the world using simple, straightforward terminology and explicit  
logical argumentation, both of which