Geometric properties of nucleic acids with potential for autobuilding.

ABSTRACT: Medium- to high-resolution X-ray structures of DNA and RNA molecules were investigated to find geometric properties useful for automated model building in crystallographic electron-density maps. We describe a simple method, starting from a list of electron-density 'blobs', for identifying backbone phosphates and nucleic acid bases based on properties of the local electron-density distribution. This knowledge should be useful for the automated building of nucleic acid models into electron-density maps. We show that the distances and angles involving C1' and the P atoms, using the pseudo-torsion angles \eta' and \theta\,' that describe the ...P-C1'-P-C1'... chain, provide a promising basis for building the nucleic acid polymer. These quantities show reasonably narrow distributions with asymm

SUBMITTER: Gruene T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3006036 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature