The main reason for reporting the Matthews coefficient might be historical, i.e. old fogeys are familiar with the numbers because that's the first way the cell content was reported. People might have been reluctant to report the solvent content in the old days because it requires making some assumption about the protein having a certain partial specific volume.
Nonetheless, Phaser (and probably other programs) also reports the solvent content in the cell content analysis step, so you're free to choose the one you prefer. Regards, Randy Read On 18 Sep 2010, at 19:52, Tim Gruene wrote: > Hello, > > why do people and programs (like phaser) use the Matthews coefficient instead > of percentage of solvent content? The amount of information seems the same to > me > and the coefficient is very cumbersome, whereas a percentage is obvious and > it's > easy to imagine what it means. > > Thanks for the discussion, Tim > > -- > -- > Tim Gruene > Institut fuer anorganische Chemie > Tammannstr. 4 > D-37077 Goettingen > > GPG Key ID = A46BEE1A > ------ Randy J. Read Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge Cambridge Institute for Medical Research Tel: + 44 1223 336500 Wellcome Trust/MRC Building Fax: + 44 1223 336827 Hills Road E-mail: [email protected] Cambridge CB2 0XY, U.K. www-structmed.cimr.cam.ac.uk
