Protein Data Bank Japan: Celebrating our 20th anniversary during a global pandemic as the Asian hub of three dimensional macromolecular structural data
Gert‐Jan Bekker, Masashi Yokochi, Hirofumi Suzuki, Yasuyo Ikegawa, Takeshi Iwata, Takahiro KUDOU, Kei Yura, Toshimichi Fujiwara, Takeshi Kawabata, Genji Kurisu
Abstract
Protein Data Bank Japan (PDBj), a founding member of the worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) has accepted, processed and distributed experimentally determined biological macromolecular structures for 20 years. During that time, we have continuously made major improvements to our query search interface of PDBj Mine 2, the BMRBj web interface, and EM Navigator for PDB/BMRB/EMDB entries. PDBj also serves PDB-related secondary database data, original web-based modeling services such as Homology modeling of complex structure (HOMCOS), visualization services and utility tools, which we have continuously enhanced and expanded throughout the years. In addition, we have recently developed several unique archives, BSM-Arc for computational structure models, and XRDa for raw X-ray diffraction images, both of which promote open science in the structural biology community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, PDBj has also started to provide feature pages for COVID-19 related entries across all available archives at PDBj from raw experimental data and PDB structural data to computationally predicted models, while also providing COVID-19 outreach content for high school students and teachers.