Airlie J. McCoy

PHENIX: a comprehensive Python-based system for macromolecular structure solution

The PHENIX software for macromolecular structure determination is described.

Phaser crystallographic software

A description is given of Phaser-2.1: software for phasing macromolecular crystal structures by molecular replacement and single-wavelength anomalous dispersion phasing.

Overview of the CCP4 suite and current developments

An overview of the CCP4 software suite for macromolecular crystallography is given.

PHENIX: building new software for automated crystallographic structure determination

Structural genomics seeks to expand rapidly the number of protein structures in order to extract the maximum amount of information from genomic sequence databases. The advent of several large-scale projects worldwide leads to many new challenges in the field of crystallographic macromolecular structure determination. A novel software package called PHENIX (Python-based Hierarchical ENvironment for Integrated Xtallography) is therefore being developed. This new software will provide the necessary algorithms to proceed from reduced intensity data to a refined molecular model and to facilitate structure solution for both the novice and expert crystallographer.

Likelihood-enhanced fast translation functions

This paper is a companion to a recent paper on fast rotation functions [Storoni et al. (2004), Acta Cryst. D60, 432-438], which showed how a Taylor-series expansion of the maximum-likelihood rotation function leads to improved likelihood-enhanced fast rotation functions. In a similar manner, it is shown here how linear and quadratic Taylor-series expansions and least-squares approximations of the maximum-likelihood translation function lead to likelihood-enhanced translation functions, which can be calculated by FFT and which are more sensitive to the correct translation than the traditional correlation-coefficient fast translation function. These likelihood-enhanced translation targets for molecular-replacement searches have been implemented in the program Phaser using the Computational Crystallography Toolbox (cctbx).

Likelihood-enhanced fast rotation functions

Experiences with the molecular-replacement program Beast have shown that maximum-likelihood rotation targets are more sensitive to the correct orientation than traditional targets. However, this comes at a high computational cost: brute-force rotation searches can take hours or even days of computation time on current desktop computers. Series approximations to the full likelihood target have been developed that can be computed by fast Fourier transforms in minutes. These likelihood-enhanced targets are more sensitive to the correct orientation than the Crowther fast rotation function and they take advantage of information from partial solutions. The likelihood-enhanced rotation targets have been implemented in the program Phaser.

Solving structures of protein complexes by molecular replacement with Phaser

Four case studies in using maximum-likelihood molecular replacement, as implemented in the program Phaser, to solve structures of protein complexes are described.

Decision-making in structure solution using Bayesian estimates of map quality: the PHENIX AutoSol wizard

Ten measures of experimental electron-density-map quality are examined and the skewness of electron density is found to be the best indicator of actual map quality. A Bayesian approach to estimating map quality is developed and used in the PHENIX AutoSol wizard to make decisions during automated structure solution.

The Phenix software for automated determination of macromolecular structures.

X-ray crystallography is a critical tool in the study of biological systems. It is able to provide information that has been a prerequisite to understanding the fundamentals of life. It is also a method that is central to the development of new therapeutics for human disease. Significant time and effort are required to determine and optimize many macromolecular structures because of the need for manual interpretation of complex numerical data, often using many different software packages, and the repeated use of interactive three-dimensional graphics. The Phenix software package has been developed to provide a comprehensive system for macromolecular crystallographic structure solution with an emphasis on automation. This has required the development of new algorithms that minimize or eliminate subjective input in favor of built-in expert-systems knowledge, the automation of procedures that are traditionally performed by hand, and the development of a computational framework that allows a tight integration between the algorithms. The application of automated methods is particularly appropriate in the field of structural proteomics, where high throughput is desired. Features in Phenix for the automation of experimental phasing with subsequent model building, molecular replacement, structure refinement and validation are described and examples given of running Phenix from both the command line and graphical user interface.

Automated Structure Solution with the PHENIX Suite

Significant time and effort are often required to solve and complete a macromolecular crystal structure. The development of automated computational methods for the analysis, solution, and completion of crystallographic structures has the potential to produce minimally biased models in a short time without the need for manual intervention. The PHENIX software suite is a highly automated system for macromolecular structure determination that can rapidly arrive at an initial partial model of a structure without significant human intervention, given moderate resolution, and good quality data. This achievement has been made possible by the development of new algorithms for structure determination, maximum-likelihood molecular replacement (PHASER), heavy-atom search (HySS), template- and pattern-based automated model-building (RESOLVE, TEXTAL), automated macromolecular refinement (phenix. refine), and iterative model-building, density modification and refinement that can operate at moderate resolution (RESOLVE, AutoBuild). These algorithms are based on a highly integrated and comprehensive set of crystallographic libraries that have been built and made available to the community. The algorithms are tightly linked and made easily accessible to users through the PHENIX Wizards and the PHENIX GUI.