The number of macromolecular structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank now
approaches 100 000, with the vast majority of them determined by crystallographic methods …

As a contribution to the celebration of the year 2014, declared by the United Nations to be
'The International Year of Crystallography', the FEBS Journal is dedicating this issue to …

Refinement of empirical force fields for nucleic acids requires their extensive testing using as
wide range of systems as possible. However, finding unambiguous reference data is not …

Given the many roles proposed for Mg2+ in nucleic acids, it is essential to accurately
determine their binding modes. Here, we surveyed the PDB to classify Mg2+ inner-sphere …

The structure and dynamics of DNA are governed by a sensitive balance between base
stacking and pairing, hydration, and interactions with ions. Force-field models that include …

Macromolecular structure is governed by the strict rules of stereochemistry. Several
approaches to the validation of the correctness of the interpretation of crystallographic and …

Z-DNA and Z-RNA have long appeared as oddities to nucleic acid scientists. However, their
Z-step constituents are recurrently observed in all types of nucleic acid systems including …

The ribose 2′-hydroxyl is the key chemical difference between RNA and DNA and primary
source of their divergent structural and functional characteristics. Macromolecular X-ray …

Despite the existence of numerous useful conventions in structural crystallography, for
example for the choice of the asymmetric part of the unit cell or of reciprocal space …

Whereas the vast majority of the more than 85 000 crystal structures of macromolecules
currently deposited in the Protein Data Bank are of high quality, some suffer from a variety of …