Wanted: unique names for unique atom positions. PDB-wide analysis of diastereotopic atom names of small molecules containing dip

Background: Biological chemistry is very stereospecific. Nonetheless, the diastereotopic oxygen atoms of diphosphate-containing molecules in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) are often given names that do not uniquely distinguish them from each other due to the lack of standardization. This issue has largely not been addressed by the protein structure community. Results: Of 472 diastereotopic atom pairs studied from the PDB, 118 were found to have names that are not uniquely assigned. Among the molecules identified with these inconsistencies were many cofactors of enzymatic processes such as mononucleotides (e.g. ADP, ATP, GTP), dinucleotide cofactors (e.g. FAD, NAD), and coenzyme A. There were no overall trends in naming conventions, though ligand-specific trends were prominent. Conclusion: The lack of standardized naming conventions for diastereotopic atoms of small molecules has left the ad hoc names assigned to many of these atoms non-unique, which may create problems in data-mining of ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Christopher A. Bottoms, Dong Xu
• Keywords: BMCBI 2008, Molecules, Naming Convention, Protein Data Bank