AUTODEP - FACILITATING DEPOSITION TO THE PROTEIN DATA BANK THROUGH THE NEW WEB-BASED SUBMISSION FORM. D.R.Stampf, E.E.Abola, N.O.Manning, D.Xue, and J.L.Sussman, Brookhaven National Laboratory, P.O. Box 5000, Upton, NY, 11973-5000 USA, and Bioinformatics Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is an archive of experimentally-determined three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules, serving a global community of researchers, educators, and students. The database contains atomic coordinates, bibliographic citations, primary and secondary structure information, as well as crystallographic structure factors and NMR experimental data.

In order to streamline the deposition procedure, both to reduce the depositors' time spent in filling out the deposition form and to increase the accuracy and information content of a PDB entry, a World Wide Web-based graphical user interface (AutoDep) has been designed.

The AutoDep form may be populated with data from any released PDB entry, a previously submitted but not yet released entry, or it may be filled out from scratch. Additionally, PDB-formatted output from refinement and rebuilding programs can be submitted in lieu of filling out the form.

Preliminary verification of each field in the form is done during the interactive session. The depositor is able to view the resultant bibliographic portion of the PDB entry at any time in order to check his or her progress. A simple script is provided that can be copied to a window on the home computer which will FTP the coordinates and related files to the PDB.

The AutoDep procedure is based on CIF and was built using CIF-based data dictionaries. Any changes to the deposition procedures or information content of PDB entries are easily accommodated by editing the dictionary files.

The PDB is supported by a combination of Federal Government Agency funds and user fees. Support is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of General Medical Sciences, National Library of Medicine, and the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-76CH00016.