Estimating structure quality trends in the Protein Data Bank by equivalent resolution

The quality of protein structures obtained by different experimental and ab-initio calculation methods varies considerably. The methods have been evolving over time by improving both experimental designs and computational techniques, and since the primary aim of these developments is the procurement of reliable and high-quality data, better techniques resulted on average in an evolution toward higher quality structures in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Each method leaves a specific quantitative and qualitative “trace” in the PDB entry. Certain information relevant to one method (e.g. dynamics for NMR) may be lacking for another method. Furthermore, some standard measures of quality for one method cannot be calculated for other experimental methods, e.g. crystal resolution or NMR bundle RMSD. Consequently, structures are classified in the PDB by the method used. Here we introduce a method to estimate a measure of equivalent X-ray resolution (e-resolution), expressed in units of Å, to assess the quality of any type of monomeric, single-chain protein structure, irrespective of the experimental structure determination method. We showed and compared the trends in the quality of structures in the Protein Data Bank over the last two decades for five different experimental techniques, excluding theoretical structure predictions. We observed that as new methods are introduced, they undergo a rapid method development evolution: within several years the e-resolution score becomes similar for structures obtained from the five methods and they improve from initially poor performance to acceptable quality, comparable with previously established methods, the performance of which is essentially stable.