Re: [ccp4bb] crystallographic confusion [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

2014-04-19 Thread Edward A. Berry

There are three places in a pdb file where resolution is defined.
Unfortunately by current conventions I believe they are all required
to show the same value. If one of them could be redefined to be
"effective resolution", with a comment to explain how that was
arrived at, it would take the pressure off of resolution cuttoff
to serve double duty as the principal indicator of quality.

I guess you can entitle your paper "2.2 A structure of XYZ" even if
the pdb file shows the resolution to be 1.92 with 22% completeness
in the last shell, which could appease some reviewers but make
problems with others.
eab

DUFF, Anthony wrote:

I thought...  we had a definition for reportable resolution: The resolution at which 
 = 2, and completeness > 50%

This reported resolution is not to be confused with data cutoff.  We give the 
software all the scaled and merged data and let it down-weight the weak data.  At the 
edge, we might happily have Rmerge=50%, multiplicity = 1.1,  = 1.  
The resolution of the edge data should not be reported as the resolution of the data.

This reportable resolution is actually useful in refinement.  Very very 
roughly, you are done when the R-factor equals reportable resolution divided by 
10.  25% for 2.5A data.  15% for 1.5A data.


Anthony Duff

-Original Message-
From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Tom Peat
Sent: Saturday, 19 April 2014 6:03 PM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] crystallographic confusion

As has been alluded to, people (and not just crystallographers) are looking for 
a simple number to indicate the quality of a structure.
Unfortunately this doesn't exist, but it doesn't keep people from wanting such 
a number.
Most crystallographers (I think) now agree that throwing data away is a bad 
idea and will make maps worse.
The real question is not whether to throw data away, but what to call the 
resolution of a map/ structure.
A structure that has been refined with data that is ~90% complete at 3.6 
Angstrom resolution but that has 2% completeness at 2.8 Angstrom would be 
considered to be ?  (Just to pull one instance from the PDB).
If we as crystallographers could agree to some definition as to what our 
arbitrary resolution number is, life would probably be easier for the 
non-crystallographers (as well as for the crystallographers in some instances- 
particularly in the process of reviewing papers).

cheers, tom


Tom Peat
Biophysics Group
CSIRO, CMSE
343 Royal Parade
Parkville, VIC, 3052
+613 9662 7304
+614 57 539 419
tom.p...@csiro.au

From: CCP4 bulletin board [CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] on behalf of William G. Scott 
[wgsc...@ucsc.edu]
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:41 AM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] crystallographic confusion

Dear Arnon et al:

My understanding of the Shannon/Nyquist sampling theorem is admittedly 
extremely rudimentary, but I think aliasing can result if an arbitrary 
brick-wall resolution cut-off to the data is applied.

So let's say there are real data are to 2.0 Å resolution. Applying the 2.2 Å 
cutoff will result in aliasing artifacts in the electron density map 
corresponding to an outer shell reciprocal space volume equal but opposite to 
the cut out data.

The alternative, which is to process and keep all the measured reflections, 
should help to minimize this.  An effective resolution can be calculated and 
quoted.  This becomes a significant problem with nucleic acids and their 
complexes, which often diffract with significant anisotropy.

The idea that 85% completeness in the outer shell should dictate its rejection 
seems rather surprising and arbitrary. The aliasing artifacts in that case 
would probably be significant.  The map image quality, after all, is what we 
are after, not beautiful Table 1 statistics.

Bill


William G. Scott
Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and The Center for the Molecular 
Biology of RNA University of California at Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California 
95064 USA http://scottlab.ucsc.edu/scottlab/



On Apr 18, 2014, at 5:22 PM, Lavie, Arnon  wrote:


Dear Kay.

Arguably, the resolution of a structure is the most important number
to look at; it is definitely the first to be examined, and often the
only one examined by non-structural biologists.

Since this number conveys so much concerning the quality/reliability
of the the structure, it is not surprising that we need to get this
one parameter right.

Let us examine a hypothetical situation, in which a data set at the
2.2-2.0 resolution shell has 20% completeness. Is this a 2.0 A
resolution structure?  While you make a sound argument that including
that data may result in a better refined model (more observations,
more restraints), I would not consider that model the same quality as
one refined against a data set that has >90% completeness at that resolution 
shell.

As I see it, there are two issues here: one, is whether to inclu

Re: [ccp4bb] crystallographic confusion [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

2014-04-19 Thread DUFF, Anthony
I thought...  we had a definition for reportable resolution: The resolution at 
which  = 2, and completeness > 50% 

This reported resolution is not to be confused with data cutoff.  We give the 
software all the scaled and merged data and let it down-weight the weak data.  
At the edge, we might happily have Rmerge=50%, multiplicity = 1.1,  = 
1.  The resolution of the edge data should not be reported as the resolution of 
the data.

This reportable resolution is actually useful in refinement.  Very very 
roughly, you are done when the R-factor equals reportable resolution divided by 
10.  25% for 2.5A data.  15% for 1.5A data.


Anthony Duff

-Original Message-
From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Tom Peat
Sent: Saturday, 19 April 2014 6:03 PM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] crystallographic confusion

As has been alluded to, people (and not just crystallographers) are looking for 
a simple number to indicate the quality of a structure. 
Unfortunately this doesn't exist, but it doesn't keep people from wanting such 
a number. 
Most crystallographers (I think) now agree that throwing data away is a bad 
idea and will make maps worse. 
The real question is not whether to throw data away, but what to call the 
resolution of a map/ structure. 
A structure that has been refined with data that is ~90% complete at 3.6 
Angstrom resolution but that has 2% completeness at 2.8 Angstrom would be 
considered to be ?  (Just to pull one instance from the PDB). 
If we as crystallographers could agree to some definition as to what our 
arbitrary resolution number is, life would probably be easier for the 
non-crystallographers (as well as for the crystallographers in some instances- 
particularly in the process of reviewing papers). 

cheers, tom


Tom Peat
Biophysics Group
CSIRO, CMSE
343 Royal Parade
Parkville, VIC, 3052
+613 9662 7304
+614 57 539 419
tom.p...@csiro.au

From: CCP4 bulletin board [CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] on behalf of William G. Scott 
[wgsc...@ucsc.edu]
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:41 AM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] crystallographic confusion

Dear Arnon et al:

My understanding of the Shannon/Nyquist sampling theorem is admittedly 
extremely rudimentary, but I think aliasing can result if an arbitrary 
brick-wall resolution cut-off to the data is applied.

So let's say there are real data are to 2.0 Å resolution. Applying the 2.2 Å 
cutoff will result in aliasing artifacts in the electron density map 
corresponding to an outer shell reciprocal space volume equal but opposite to 
the cut out data.

The alternative, which is to process and keep all the measured reflections, 
should help to minimize this.  An effective resolution can be calculated and 
quoted.  This becomes a significant problem with nucleic acids and their 
complexes, which often diffract with significant anisotropy.

The idea that 85% completeness in the outer shell should dictate its rejection 
seems rather surprising and arbitrary. The aliasing artifacts in that case 
would probably be significant.  The map image quality, after all, is what we 
are after, not beautiful Table 1 statistics.

Bill


William G. Scott
Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and The Center for the Molecular 
Biology of RNA University of California at Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California 
95064 USA http://scottlab.ucsc.edu/scottlab/



On Apr 18, 2014, at 5:22 PM, Lavie, Arnon  wrote:

> Dear Kay.
>
> Arguably, the resolution of a structure is the most important number 
> to look at; it is definitely the first to be examined, and often the 
> only one examined by non-structural biologists.
>
> Since this number conveys so much concerning the quality/reliability 
> of the the structure, it is not surprising that we need to get this 
> one parameter right.
>
> Let us examine a hypothetical situation, in which a data set at the
> 2.2-2.0 resolution shell has 20% completeness. Is this a 2.0 A 
> resolution structure?  While you make a sound argument that including 
> that data may result in a better refined model (more observations, 
> more restraints), I would not consider that model the same quality as 
> one refined against a data set that has >90% completeness at that resolution 
> shell.
>
> As I see it, there are two issues here: one, is whether to include 
> such data in refinement?  I am not sure if low completeness 
> (especially if not
> random) can be detrimental to a correct model, but I will let other 
> weigh in on that.
>
> The second question is where to declare the resolution limit of a 
> particular data set?  To my mind, here high completeness (the term "high"
> needs a precise definition) better describes the true resolution limit 
> of the diffraction, and with this what I can conclude about the 
> quality of the refined model.
>
> My two cents.
>
> Arnon Lavie
>
> On Fri, April 18, 2014 6:51 pm, Kay Diederichs wro