X-ray Validation Task Force

Method-specific Validation Task Forces have been convened to collect recommendations and develop consensus on additional validation that should be performed, and to identify software applications to perform validation tasks.

The recommendations of the X-ray Validation Task Force have been published:

A New Generation of Crystallographic Validation Tools for the Protein Data Bank
Randy J. Read, Paul D. Adams, W. Bryan Arendall III, Axel T. Brunger, Paul Emsley, Robbie P. Joosten, Gerard J. Kleywegt, Eugene B. Krissinel, Thomas Lütteke, Zbyszek Otwinowski, Anastassis Perrakis, Jane S. Richardson, William H. Sheffler, Janet L. Smith, Ian J. Tickle, Gert Vriend and Peter H. Zwart.
(2011) Structure 19: 1395-1412.

These recommendations are the basis of a new validation suite that will be part of the new Common Tool for Deposition and Annotation (D&A) that is currently being developed by the wwPDB partners. The D&A tool and the X-ray validation pipeline will go into production by the end of 2012 at all wwPDB deposition sites. From that moment in time on, depositors of X-ray crystal structures will be provided with a detailed validation report. Such reports can be submitted to journals to accompany manuscripts describing new structures, and several publishers are working towards making such reports mandatory. Once the D&A tool is in production, the wwPDB partners also plan to provide the validation pipeline as a server, allowing crystallographers to assess their models before deposition and publication.

The wwPDB X-ray VTF was convened in 2008 at a workshop organized by Randy Read (Cambridge University), and sponsored by the RCSB PDB & PDBe. Detailed information about the workshop is available.

The wwPDB greatly appreciates the efforts of its Task Forces.

Questions? info@wwpdb.org.