Online tutorial
Analysing and evaluating macromolecular models
Model quality assessment
Time to complete:
3 hours
This course includes:
Written by:
Last reviewed:
July 2025
All materials are free cultural works licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, except where further licensing details are provided.
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Understanding the 3D structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and their complexes is key to interpreting their functions. These models, whether from experiments or computational predictions, vary in accuracy and reliability. This tutorial introduces essential tools and metrics to assess macromolecular model quality, a crucial step for research using structural data.
Who is this course for?
This course is for scientists who are interested in incorporating macromolecular structures/models into their research and want to learn how to critically evaluate their quality. It is particularly relevant for those who need to confidently assess the reliability and applicability of structural data for their specific biological questions.
What will I achieve?
By the end of the course you will be able to:
- Explain why assessing the quality of macromolecular models is a crucial step in biological research
- Evaluate the overall accuracy of macromolecular structures by integrating global and local quality assessments
- Identify the most important global quality metrics for structures determined by X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
- List common indicators of local modelling problems
What resources do I need?
There are no specific resources required to complete this course.
DOI:
10.6019/TOL.Evaluate_MacroModels_PDBe-t.2025.00001.1
Course contents
- Introduction to model quality assessment
- Global quality assessment
- Local quality assessment
- Key takeaways
- Crosscheck with a crossword
- Further reading
- Acknowledgements
- Your feedback
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