A new platform called 3D-Beacons Network brings together experimentally determined and predicted protein structure models and related data from several providers and makes them freely available, all in one place.
The data are provided by the Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe), AlphaFold DB, SWISS-MODEL, Protein Ensemble Database (PED), Small Angle Scattering Biological Data Bank (SASBDB), Genome3D, and PDBe Knowledge Base (PDBe-KB).
Proteins are the essential building blocks of all living organisms, and understanding their structure is critical for advancing medical research. Protein structures are traditionally determined using complex lab-based techniques. However, with the availability of high-quality predicted models for large numbers of proteins, structural biologists can now access both experimental and predicted structures together with their annotations, to benefit their research.
The 3D-Beacons Network allows users to search using UniProt accession numbers and see protein structure models from different providers in a standardised format. This collaboration combines experimentally determined structures, predicted models, template-based models, conformational ensembles, and annotations.
To read more, visit the EMBL-EBI news page.
