Obsolete Protein Data Bank (PDB) entries are now available as part of a
joint initiative between the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the
PDB. Obsolete entries are those which have been replaced by newer versions
of the same structure or removed completely from the PDB distribution.
These entries are considered important for the following reasons:
1. To relate a structure description found in a paper to the corresponding
set of coordinates even when a more recent set of coordinates are
available.
2. For comparative analysis during software development. New software
can not be compared to existing software, since the coordinate sets
used to test the original software were not available for use with the
new software.
It is important that these obsolete entries NOT be confused with
current entries. Hence they are kept in a separate database accessible
at http://www.sdsc.edu/PDBobsolete. There is a link between the PDB 3DB
database (http://www.pdb.bnl.gov/cgi-bin/pdbmain) and the obsolete
database.
The obsolete database currently contains 291 structures. Structures may be
located by keywords or PDB ID. Once located structures can be displayed,
coordinates downloaded, and the chronology of an entry examined. Various
statistics on the content of the archive are also available.
The archive was developed by Helge Weissig and Phil Bourne.
