Re: [ccp4bb] High Rwork/Rfree vs. Resolution
Hi Kay means, of course, the ACA meeting in Albuquerque, not the IUCr in Montreal! Authors of the major processing packages will be competing for your attention... Harry -- ** note change of address ** Dr Harry Powell, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Francis Crick Avenue, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, CB2 0QH Chairman of European Crystallographic Association SIG9 (Crystallographic Computing) On 23 Feb 2014, at 07:55, Kay Diederichs kay.diederi...@uni-konstanz.de wrote: Projects and problems like this are clearly a justification for asking to deposit not only the results from data processing, but also the raw data frames. These would allow developers to improve the models underlying their algorithms, and to find those corner cases where the algorithms break. That would help everyone. Maybe you could make this dataset (and sequence) available for the forthcoming IUCr conference, as an example for a difficult dataset? (send email to Ed Collins or me) You would profit from the fact that experienced crystallographers do their best to make the most of your data. best, Kay On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 20:13:33 -0600, Chris Fage cdf...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the assistance, everyone. For those who suggested XDS: I forgot to mention that I have tried Mosfim, which is also better than spot fitting than HKL2000. How does XDS compare to Mosflm in this regard? I am not refining the high R-factor structure with NCS options. Also, my unit cell dimensions are 41.74 A, 69.27 A, and 83.56 A, so there isn't one particularly long axis. I'm guessing the low completeness of the 1.65 angstrom dataset has to do with obstacles the processing software encountered on a sizable wedge of frames (there were swaths of in red in HKL2000). I'm not sure why this dataset in particular was less complete than the others. Thanks, Chris On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 6:41 PM, Chris Fage cdf...@gmail.com wrote: Dear CCP4BB Users, I recently collected a number of datasets from plate-shaped crystals that diffracted to 1.9-2.0 angstroms and yielded very nice electron density maps. There is no major density unaccounted for by the model; however, I am unable to decrease Rwork and Rfree beyond ~0.25 and ~0.30, respectively. Probably due to the more 2-dimensional nature of my crystals, there is a range of phi angles in which the reflections are smeared, and I am wondering if the problem lies therein. I would be grateful if anyone could provide advice for improving my refinement statistics, as I was under the impression that the R-factors should be ~5% lower for the given resolution. A few more pieces of information: -Space group = P21, with 2 monomers per asymmetric unit; -Chi square = 1.0-1.5; -Rmerge = 0.10-0.15; -Data were processed in HKL2000 and refined in Refmac5 and/or phenix.refine; -PHENIX Xtriage does not detect twinning, but hints at possible weak translational pseudosymmetry; -I was previously able to grow one atypically thick crystal which diffracted to 1.65 angstroms with Rwork/Rfree at 0.18/0.22. Unfortunately, the completeness of the dataset was only ~90%. Regards, Chris
Re: [ccp4bb] High Rwork/Rfree vs. Resolution
oops, thanks for correcting me! Kay On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 11:28:31 +, Harry Powell ha...@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk wrote: Hi Kay means, of course, the ACA meeting in Albuquerque, not the IUCr in Montreal!
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One way is this: Align Domain1 of structure1 to Domain1 of structure 2 on domain 1 (using LSQKAB or whatever.) Then align domain2 of the output aligned structure 1 to domain 2 of structure 2 The polar Chi or Kappa or whatever output from that alignment is the angular shift required Eleanor On 22 Feb 2014, at 06:19, avinash singh wrote: Dear CCp4b users, I have a protein which has been crystallized in two different conditions. In one of those conditions, the structure shows the domain shifting. Is there any programme or online server which calculates the angular shift in domain when campared to the other condition crystallized structure which shows no such domain shift. Thanks in advance Avinash Singh
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Dear Avinash, in addition to Eleanors suggestion you might want to consider using Dyndom in CCP4 or via its web server. It will also identify hinge regions and percent twist motion vs. closure motion. Best, Matthias - Dr. Matthias Zebisch Division of Structural Biology, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK Phone (+44) 1865 287549; Fax (+44) 1865 287547 Email matth...@strubi.ox.ac.uk Website http://www.strubi.ox.ac.uk - On 2/23/2014 6:57 PM, Eleanor Dodson wrote: One way is this: Align Domain1 of structure1 to Domain1 of structure 2 on domain 1 (using LSQKAB or whatever.) Then align domain2 of the output aligned structure 1 to domain 2 of structure 2 The polar Chi or Kappa or whatever output from that alignment is the angular shift required Eleanor On 22 Feb 2014, at 06:19, avinash singh wrote: Dear CCp4b users, I have a protein which has been crystallized in two different conditions. In one of those conditions, the structure shows the domain shifting. Is there any programme or online server which calculates the angular shift in domain when campared to the other condition crystallized structure which shows no such domain shift. Thanks in advance Avinash Singh
Re: [ccp4bb] High Rwork/Rfree vs. Resolution
On 22/02/2014 10:15, Mark van Raaij wrote: As the excellent tips that you got indicate, lower R-factors can be obtained by getting better data (better crystals, better data collection, better data processing) or better fitting, i.e. refinement. In this respect, I am impressed by the automatic data processing protocols now being implemented. Also, the automatic local NCS refinement in REFMAC seems very good for our recent structures. But I would really want to make a general comment - not ALL structures can be better than the average! Except structures from the Lake Wobegon Center for Structural Biology, of course. There will always be structures with 5% higher R/Rfree than the average in the same resolution range. Sometimes this will be due to suboptimal refinement, but sometimes it may simply not be possible to get better crystals and better data. Better not necessarily in term of resolution, but in terms of disorders like you describe for your plate-shaped crystals. What I mean is that one should make all efforts to get better crystals and data and refine structures as well as possible, but sometimes it may not be possible to beat the average of the pdb and one should not get too hung up by that. These structures should also be deposited and published. On the other hand, these rules that R-factor should be a certain value at a certain resolution, may lead to suboptimal refinement. For example the thought my R-factor is already better than the average could be counterproductive and lead people to stop refinement prematurely. Sometimes a structure will have Rs better than the average for the resolution, but still better refinement could lower it further and this should then be done. I can think of an MR solution using a very homologous model that was refined at higher resolution, structures with high NCS, or simply certain rock-solid proteins... Another popular one is (was?) that Rfree should always be below 30%, while several important structures justifiably have Rfrees quite a bit higher (others perhaps have not been refined enough). So while comparing R/Rfree to the average of existing structures is useful, it may not necessarily be a sign that a structure is bad if your Rs are 5 % higher, not should your Rs being at or below the average be an excuse for stopping refinement too early. Fear that ones Rs are not low enough may even lead to certain forms of cheating, for example not keeping the Rfree reflections truly free. On 22 Feb 2014, at 01:41, Chris Fage wrote: Dear CCP4BB Users, I recently collected a number of datasets from plate-shaped crystals that diffracted to 1.9-2.0 angstroms and yielded very nice electron density maps. There is no major density unaccounted for by the model; however, I am unable to decrease Rwork and Rfree beyond ~0.25 and ~0.30, respectively. Probably due to the more 2-dimensional nature of my crystals, there is a range of phi angles in which the reflections are smeared, and I am wondering if the problem lies therein. I would be grateful if anyone could provide advice for improving my refinement statistics, as I was under the impression that the R-factors should be ~5% lower for the given resolution. A few more pieces of information: -Space group = P21, with 2 monomers per asymmetric unit; -Chi square = 1.0-1.5; -Rmerge = 0.10-0.15; -Data were processed in HKL2000 and refined in Refmac5 and/or phenix.refine; -PHENIX Xtriage does not detect twinning, but hints at possible weak translational pseudosymmetry; -I was previously able to grow one atypically thick crystal which diffracted to 1.65 angstroms with Rwork/Rfree at 0.18/0.22. Unfortunately, the completeness of the dataset was only ~90%. Regards, Chris Mark J van Raaij Lab 20B Dpto de Estructura de Macromoleculas Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia - CSIC c/Darwin 3 E-28049 Madrid, Spain tel. (+34) 91 585 4616 http://www.cnb.csic.es/~mjvanraaij -- Andreas Förster Crystallization and X-ray Facility Manager Centre for Structural Biology Imperial College London
Re: [ccp4bb] High Rwork/Rfree vs. Resolution
On Sunday, 23 February 2014 09:16:41 PM Andreas Förster wrote: On 22/02/2014 10:15, Mark van Raaij wrote: But I would really want to make a general comment - not ALL structures can be better than the average! Except structures from the Lake Wobegon Center for Structural Biology, of course. Ah, but it _is_ be possible for each new structure deposition to be better than the average quality of all previously deposited structures. And in fact the continual improvement of detectors, programs, and refinement protocols pushes things in exactly this direction. I have noted only half in jest that this phenomenon is important to the wide acceptance of validation tools like Molprobity. By reporting quality relative to all previous structures in the PDB, the program authors have cleverly arranged for the program to report to most users Green light! Your new model is better than most structures in the PDB!. Everyone likes to be patted on the back and told they have done a good job, so they like the program and continue to use it. This makes a red light score, when it does happen, stand out more and therefore makes it more likely that users will take it seriously.
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Hi Prerana, You remind me of my struggle to obtain the crystal of mushroom tyrosinase years ago. Exactly the same situation, I always got precipitation in almost every condition (some were just clear drops, which stayed clear forever until they dried out). In despair (after years of unsuccessful attempts), I carelessly purified the enzyme in water and used the purified enzyme for crystallization. Amazingly, I found crystals in some conditions where the crystal had never grew before. The crystals diffracted badly (about 8 Angstrom) but this initial finding led us to purify the enzyme using buffer with low ionic strength and set up crystallization: Optimization of purification conditions (with thermofluor) brought us to the use of HEPES buffer, which indeed has a very low ionic strength. In addition, the strikingly strange result of thermofluor assay was, under the original buffer condition the enzyme has a nice melting temperature profile (the presence of calcium and HEPES made it even better, shift the Tm to a higher temperature) but the enzyme in water displayed a profile of unstructured protein. Wangsa et. al. (2011) Acta Crystallogr. F 67, 575-578. Good luck. Wangsa On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 6:14 PM, Prerana G. tracy...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Sorry for asking an off-topic question, I have recently purified a protein having a molecular weight of 40kDa and concentration of the protein was 8mg/ml. When I tried to set the protein for crystallisation using micobatch method, the protein started precipitating in most of the buffer conditions of Crystal screen and Peg ion. The precipitation took place very quickly (within 5-10 mins). How should I overcome this problem? Regards Prerana -- Wangsa Tirta Ismaya Jakarta, Indonesia
[ccp4bb] research technician opening at Brown University
Dear colleagues, Please see below an announcement regarding an opening for a research technician at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Thank you, Alexandra * * *Research Technician, Deaconescu Laboratory at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island* * Job Summary * ** The Deaconescu Laboratory in the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) is seeking a highly motivated individual to work as a research technician. More information about the lab at: http://biology.brown.edu/faculty/profile.php?id=1379608523. The desired candidate will be responsible for performing routine lab work including media preparation, cloning, large-scale protein expression and purification, preparation of solutions and stocks and protein crystallization. Additional responsibilities include performing general lab administration, which includes organization and maintenance of lab databases and stocks, ordering, data entry and other duties as assigned. Applicant should be highly motivated with thorough, methodological and accurate work habits, and must be able to work both independently and as part of a team. The ideal candidate has a strong ability to multi-task, has good communication skills, and the ability to work as a part of a team, as well as independently. This is a great opportunity for training in structural biology. Current college seniors are encouraged to apply. * Required Qualifications* - Bachelor's degree in a biological science or chemistry is highly desired - Biological laboratory experience is highly desired To apply, please send a CV, undergraduate transcript (if applicable) and contact information for three references to alexandra_deacone...@brown.edu mailto:alexandra_deacone...@brown.edu. Write technician candidate in the subject line.
Re: [ccp4bb] High Rwork/Rfree vs. Resolution
It seems to me some of the images may have multiple lattices and/or pseudomerohedral twinning. Are all the spots predicted during integration? What do the various twinning tests indicate? JPK From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Chris Fage Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 5:52 PM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] High Rwork/Rfree vs. Resolution Thanks again for the advice, everyone. As suggested, I tried NCS and TLS in phenix.refine, although my R-factors did not budge. I am now giving PDB_REDO and simulating annealing in PHENIX a shot. I am also looking into setting up XDS. Forgive my ignorance, but I am not sure how to check whether the bulk solvent model is reasonable. For these crystals, HKL2000 does invariably report high mosaicity along one axis (it is in the red). Yes, the structure was solved by MR. For the 1.65-angstrom map, the model is very complete, with density missing only for the N-terminal 6xHis tag and first three residues, as well as 5-10 other residues on flexible loops (the protein is ~300 residues, including the tag). Most side chains are well resolved. The quality of the 1.90-angstrom map is lower, with more gaps, more noise, and less side-chain coverage. In each map, there is no remaining density that legitimately needs to be filled. I have attached representative frames and relevant details from the HKL2000 scale logs. (Note that the 1.65-A set was originally scaled to 1.53 A.) As for making the datasets available before publication, I would have to check with my supervisor. The idea might not fly with him, as the structure is expected to be of relatively high impact. Best, Chris On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 3:00 AM, Francis Reyes francis.re...@colorado.edumailto:francis.re...@colorado.edu wrote: I'm guessing the low completeness of the 1.65 angstrom dataset has to do with obstacles the processing software encountered on a sizable wedge of frames (there were swaths of in red in HKL2000). I'm not sure why this dataset in particular was less complete than the others. This is bad. Large swaths of red circles during integration is bad. I believe (check the Denzo manual) this means overlaps and overlaps get thrown out. Thus you are getting lower completeness. Was your oscillation range too large? Crystal very mosaic? However this could be because of a poor crystal orientation matrix by HKL2000 which in some cases can be alleviated by mosflm and xds. (HKL2000 is much more manual, there's a lot of buttons, which means you can shoot yourself in the foot if you are not careful). I would be particularly interested in a resolution bin breakdown in the integration and merging statistics. (I/sig and rmerge). You might as well post the refinement statistics (r and rfree) by resolution bin as well. You have a smallish unit cell that shoots to high resolution and getting a reasonable completion of the low resolution bins is paramount. Post the completeness of the 20-10A bin. Is this molecular replacement? How complete is the model? Aside from the completeness of the model, how far is it from the target? You mentioned that some regions of your crystal had smeary spots. This is also bad, particularly if the errors are not random (I.e anisotropic along one axis). This will confuse ML refinement. Let's see a single frame of your data. Cheers, F
Re: [ccp4bb] High Rwork/Rfree vs. Resolution
Chris, On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 2:52 PM, Chris Fage cdf...@gmail.com wrote: As suggested, I tried NCS and TLS in phenix.refine, although my R-factors did not budge. (...) Forgive my ignorance, but I am not sure how to check whether the bulk solvent model is reasonable. I figure you used phenix.refine for refinement in which case bulk-solvent modeling and overall anisotropic scaling should be optimal within the framework of the implemented model used to describe it (for more info see http://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2013/04/00/dz5273/dz5273.pdf). You can check it by looking in refinement log file (this is the table I always look first thing before doing anything else). There you will see something like this: Resolution Compl Nwork Nfree R_work Fobs Fmodel kiso kani kmask 43.996-14.23 96.158812 0.1175 94.939 93.450 1.00 0.148 0.288 14.224-11.37 98.0694 7 0.1211 84.547 83.471 1.00 0.151 0.295 11.321-9.092 98.90 15623 0.0967 85.623 85.288 1.00 0.148 0.300 9.082-7.268 97.97 30533 0.1400 61.020 59.892 1.00 0.143 0.300 7.264-5.810 98.96 60163 0.1495 54.915 53.404 1.00 0.140 0.275 5.806-4.642 98.67 1134 127 0.1271 71.906 71.017 1.00 0.149 0.274 4.642-3.711 97.88 2198 203 0.1310 68.399 67.585 1.00 0.156 0.273 3.710-2.966 97.16 4129 462 0.1611 46.881 46.262 1.00 0.157 0.034 2.966-2.371 94.27 7737 874 0.1878 25.826 25.084 1.00 0.154 0.000 2.371-2.200 90.76 3826 418 0.1758 19.757 19.072 1.00 0.158 0.000 Pay attention to: - completeness (second column). Ideally in all resolution bins it should be greater than 90-95%. Smaller (especially at low resolution) completeness may result in corrupted maps. - kmask (last column) value in the lowest resolution bin: it should be around 0.2-0.5 (Acta Cryst. (2002). D58, 1387-1392). This characterize sanity of bulk-solvent model. - if a resolution bin has outstandingly high r-factor (5th column) this may indicate a problem. Pavel
