Structures of a protein-ligand complex are often determined without the need of 
running a molecular replacement program: a difference Fourier is generated to 
locate the ligand, usually after a few rounds of rigid bodies and / or atom 
positional refinement..

They may account for many of the 19,000 unaccounted structures.

There is not a full consensus on what Molecular Replacement mean. Some consider 
a structure determined by simple Fourier difference maps as a case of Molecular 
Replacement where the solution is identity (or close to identity). Others (like 
me) think the terms of "solved by Molecular Replacement" should be reserved to 
cases where the non-isomorphism between the original structure and the one to 
solve is beyond the radius of convergence of refinement and reaching the 
solution requires the use of a Molecular Replacement program (precisely).

The point is that it's unclear whether you can truly get the statistics you 
want if there is no universal definition for the terms used.

Thierry

From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raji 
Edayathumangalam
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 9:48 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ccp4bb] Off-topic: PDB statistics

Hi Folks,

Does anyone know of an accurate way to mine the PDB for what percent of total 
X-ray structures deposited as on date were done using molecular replacement? I 
got hold of a pie chart for the same from my Google search for 2006 but I'd 
like to get hold of the most current statistics, if possible. The PDB has all 
kinds of statistics but not one with numbers or precent of X-ray structures 
deposited sorted by various phasing types or X-ray structure determination 
methods.

For example, an "Advanced Search" on the PDB site pulls up the following:

Total current structures by X-ray: 78960
48666 by MR

5139 by MAD

5672 by SAD

1172 by MIR

94 by MIR (when the word is completely spelled out)
75 by SIR
5 by SIR (when the word is completely spelled out)

That leaves about 19,000 X-ray structures either solved by other phasing 
methods (seems unlikely) or somehow unaccounted for in the way I am searching. 
Maybe the way I am doing the searches is no good. Does someone have a better 
way to do this?

Thanks much.
Raji

--
Raji Edayathumangalam
Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Research Associate, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Visiting Research Scholar, Brandeis University
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