PDB FILES!!!

Looks like a really bad hair day.........

Too many balls & sticks......

 Yo,yo,yo!Your brother,friend and fellow blogger Mr.Don is back!How's it been?For those of you who don't know,finals are just around the corner,so let's get studying!KOS1110 may be togh,but in the end,I'm sure all this will be worth it!
 But enough of my ramblings for today.Wanna know what I'm thinking now??I'm thinking about......hmmm......
PDB!!"Now wait just a darn minute.I ain't here to read more about acronyms!"you say.Well,my fellow brethren,PDB IS an acronym,but we're not here to learn about acronyms.Nosiree.Instead,PDB for me is a file extension.You know,the little things at the end of files when you save them?For example,picture files can be saved as .jpg or .GIF files?Yeah,that's the one.However PDB isn't your normal file extension.PDB stands for Protein Data Bank.Basically,a PDB file is one which enables pictures of protein structure,chains ,models and many more items related to protein structure to be saved in one file.Let's take a more indepth look at PDB,shall we?
  The history of PDB is a long one.PDB arises from a community discussion about how to store an archive of known protein molecules at that era.This eventually led to a meeting in Cold Springs Harbor about protein crystallography.Finally as a result of painstaking collaboration from the scientists,in 1971 PDB was established at Brookhaven.At that time,PDB had only 7 structures in its databank.As the 1980's rolled in,PDB was upgraded.How?The technology increase at that time led to many number of protein structures discovered and added to the PDB.Furthermore,community discussions about requiring protein structure depositions in the PDB led to a guideline being established by the IUCr.Then,as the 21st century drew close,
PDB was moved to RCSB( Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics) and finally in the year 2000,wwPDB was formed.Phew-what a long history!
  But the basic mission of PDB,however,is to maintain a single archive of macromelecular data that is freely available to the public.However,since PDB is needed to be regulated,a PDB member now acts as the archive keeper for the PDB(RCSB,again.Monopoly,anyone?)Members have to issue unique PDB ID's to access the data in PDB and they also have strict redistribution rules to avoid misuse of PDB.
Among the data that can be deposited to the PDB is like NMR Data,electron microscopic maps,protein structure and models and many more.These PDB files can be viewed using an application,like RasMol or RasWin.These are molecular visualization software that allow you to see the structure of proteins in the PDB,and can also display it in many modes such as ball-and-stick or ribbon mode.PDB truly is useful!
 If you want to know more about PDB,just go to this website:www.pdb.org.  It is a website that allows you to view the many sources of protein structures submitted by scientists for public viewing and also enables you to download these files.For RasMol and other interrealted software,check outrasmol.org.
You can download  the application easily here.
 After viewing all this,I'll be surprised if you aren't interested in PDB yet.It's really,really useful,man.
Just try it-you won't be sorry.Furthermore,It has a whole lotta advantages rather than conventional sources of protein structures.As such,I'd like to end my post with a table detailing the advatages of PDB against conventional protein data banks.Peace out!

 

PDB	Conventional Sources
Very easy to search for protein structures that you want.	Very difficult to search.
All of the files in PDB are available to the public.	Some files are not available to the public.
Searching for protein structure is fast with the help of a vast database.	The database is quite limited.