Reconstruction of symmetry-related molecules from protein data bank (PDB) files

Many natural proteins are active as multimers. Crystallographic protein databases, however, generally store only part of the native multimer, the asymmetric unit, along with symmetry information. As a result of inaccuracies in the data, it is not always possible to reconstruct the native multimer. Here, a set of methods is presented that are designed to cope with inconsistencies in symmetry information. Applications include the validation of Protein Data Bank entries and the automatic generation of symmetry contacts for inspection and analysis.