Tuesday 25 October 2011

what is this called?

From: Jon Schuermann
Date: 10 October 2011 22:41


I am sure this has happened many many times before but I cannot find a reference. I have a protein/DNA complex structure where the protein has P212121 symmetry, but the DNA only has P21 symmetry. I know its pseudosymmetry caused by the NCS. Has anyone seen this with protein/DNA or have a reference I can add to my paper?

Thanks so much,
  Jon

--
Jonathan P. Schuermann, Ph. D.
Beamline Scientist
NE-CAT, Building 436E
Advanced Photon Source (APS)
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60439


----------
From: James Holton


I think this is called "P21", with the additional annoyance that you
need to pick your Rfree set in P212121 and then symmetry-expand it.
Otherwise, your NCS operators will constrain your "free" reflections
to have the same intensity as their "NCS mates".  I'm sure you didn't
make that mistake, but a lot of other people have.

I suppose you could still call this "NCS", for "nearly
crystallographic symmetry".  But I think the general term
"pseudosymmetry" is what I would use in a paper.

I have seen one case (1FYK) where the protein followed the cannonical
crystallographic symmetry and the DNA was disordered along the screw
of the double helix.  Since O.L. was having a hard time interpreting
the DNA density, he re-grew the crystals with a new oligo containing a
single iodinated base to try and clear up the register, only to find
that the iodine difference map lit up _every_ base in the DNA ladder,
forming a beautiful double helix, with one atom!  That is: all the
"base pairs" in the density was actually composed of an equal portion
of all the bases in the oligo.

Not exactly the situation you are in, but definitely a case where one
part of the ASU had different "symmetry" than another.

-James Holton
MAD Scientist


No comments:

Post a Comment