I agree. We must remember, people are human, they have lives and can and most 
likely make mistakes.

Many metrics are also open to interpretation, even the PDB shows a quality and 
percentile rank (relative to all and close resolutions), but it doesn’t tell 
anyone if its "bad" or "good" that is a human judgement call. 

The PDB is not there to decide what is good and what is bad, just a depository 
that allows discussions like this to occur. 

-- 
Kelvin Lau 
https://people.epfl.ch/kelvin.lau <https://people.epfl.ch/kelvin.lau> 

Scientist - Protein production and structure core facility – PTPSP 
Co-President – EPFL Scientific Staff Association – ELSA 

EPFL SV PTECH PTPSP 
AI 2146 (Bâtiment AI) 
Station 19 
CH-1015 Lausanne
Switzerland
Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Phone: +41 21 69 30267 <tel:+41%2021%2069%C2%A030267> 
If unreachable: +41 21 69 34494 <tel:+41%2021%2069%C2%A030267> 



On 02.06.2025, 17:14, "CCP4 bulletin board on behalf of Phil Jeffrey" 
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> on behalf of 
[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:


I really don't think that 22% R-free AT 2.0 Å constitutes "gross 
disagreement" barring deliberate data manipulation, although it doesn't 
eliminate the possibility of significant errors in lower quantities. 
The review-quality validation report should report bad fits to density 
(although somewhat exaggerated at time) but I don't think it has an 
assay of difference density peaks (say >5 sigma) that were not fit. 
Perhaps a coot-like list of unmodelled blobs would be a worthy addition.


I doubt the validation protocol would find, e.g., mis-assignment unless 
it happened at a large scale, and the areas that it's more likely to 
occur (partly disordered) aren't going to show a strong signal. Hard to 
replace the human brain when trying to interpret ambiguous regions.


Phil
Princeton


On 6/2/25 9:05 AM, Oganesyan, Vaheh wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> All suggestions on what and how to handle this case are good. However, 
> aren’t we missing a major point?
> 
> How could a model that exhibits gross disagreement with data be allowed 
> in PDB? Isn’t validation protocol created to prevent cases like this?
> 
> Vaheh
> 
> *From:*CCP4 bulletin board <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> *On Behalf Of *Nikolas
> *Sent:* Friday, May 30, 2025 5:31 PM
> *To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> *Subject:* [ccp4bb] How to address deposited structures poorly modeled?
> 
> *enters the BB and kneels in reverence*
> 
> Dear BB,
> 
> Recently, delving among papers and structures for a current project, I 
> came across a deposited structure of interest that is terribly modeled. 
> In the PDB resolution is 2.00 Å (R/Rfree=0.19/0.22) and the quality 
> indicators are not terrible but upon opening it and checking the maps 
> there are some severe mistakes in the modeling.
> 
> For instance, a full chain that is in the negative Fo-Fc while positive 
> density is present, some density that is quite clear for SO4 molecules 
> (buffer) modeled as water and density for water molecules neglected. 
> Some parts seem like “coot:runwater” has been used and not checked. The 
> catalytic site is well defined.
> 
> Now, I’ve started my journey in crystallography not too long ago and 
> I’ve got many years, structures to solve and things to learn, and I know 
> that sometimes the dataset “is what it is” but these seems quite big 
> mistakes. Especially because I’ve worked with such proteins before and I 
> know the systems.
> 
> My question thus is: would it be right to contact the author of this 
> structure and point to these issues? What’s the best way to address such 
> things, possibly without coming off as obnoxious?
> 
> Thank you for your wisdom.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Nikolas
> 
> *bows and leaves the BB*
> 
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