WPDB - PC Windows based interrogation of

WPDB version 2.0 is a Microsoft Windows based program for browsing and interrogating native and derived structural features of biological macromolecules using data obtained from the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Major features of WPDB are a 20-fold compression of PDB files and query and analysis tools. The latter permit the geometric and sequence properties of structures to be analyzed individually or through comparative analysis. The object oriented software design provides a high level of interaction between display windows which facilitates information discovery. Three examples are given to illustrate the capabilities of the software, namely: finding the distribution of the most hydrophobic residues in the acid proteases; exploring the geometric features of a 4-helix bundle motif; and examining the effect of antibody binding by comparison of a neuraminidase with a neuraminidase-antibody complex. Additional details are available to World Wide Web (WWW) users at the URL http://cuhhca.hhmi.columbia.edu/wpdb.html