I think we should slowly arrive in the 21st century and realize that
methods are complementary to each other.
I've never done NMR by myself only some xray stuff and attempts to
merge EM data with xray almost 10 years ago to arrive at ab initio
phases.
Sure one can argue what information can you gain from 20 Å EM data -
it can be sufficient to solve your protein crystal structure if you
fail to find any derivatives or are unable to find/phase from >300
SeMets.
And some questions are clearly better answered by NMR than xray.
Just my 2.5 cents for today,
Jürgen
On 14 Nov 2008, at 05:41, Gerard Bricogne wrote:
> Dear Tassos, Bernhard and David,
>
> If I may push this humourous response (obviously tainted with
> crystallographic bias) a little further, I would say that my favourite
> mnemonic for the acronym "NMR" is
>
> N eeds
>
> M ore
>
> R esolution
>
> Joking apart, of course, it is a devilishly clever method.
>
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Gerard.
>
>
> --
> On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 11:28:25AM +0100, Anastassis Perrakis wrote:
>> Since I don't like attachments, I will first iterate the title of the
>> attached publication:
>>
>> "Traditional Biomolecular Structure Determination by NMR Spectroscopy
>> Allows for Major Errors "
>>
>> It immediately reminded me of an older one (ehm .. one author in
>> common!),
>> addressed at that time mostly to crystallographers:
>>
>> "Errors in protein structures." (Nature 1996)
>>
>> ... and I am afraid that the authors were right in both cases (they
>> did not
>> make many friends publishing these though)
>>
>> Crystallographers learned from that paper back then. And the
>> participation
>> of NMR spectroscopists on the 2006 paper
>> implies they are also learning ;-)
>>
>> A.
>>
>> On Nov 14, 2008, at 6:34, Bernhard Rupp wrote:
>>
>>>> wondering what people think of this.
>>>
>>> Very funny.
>>>
>>> But no kidding, Richard Dickerson, the pioneer of DNA
>>> crystallography,
>>> comes from your institution. For DNA, NMR has the benefit of readily
>>> identifying intercalations in short oligomers etc w/o agony of
>>> crystallizing.
>>>
>>> For others, pls see attached. As a physical principle, spectroscopic
>>> methods do not deliver atomic resolution structures, but a set of
>>> inferences that may or may no be compatible with a molecular model.
>>>
>>> BR
>>> <Nabuurs_2006_PLOS_biomolecular_structure_NMR_errors.pdf>
>
> --
>
> ===============================================================
> * *
> * Gerard Bricogne [log in to unmask] *
> * *
> * Global Phasing Ltd. *
> * Sheraton House, Castle Park Tel: +44-(0)1223-353033 *
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> * *
> ===============================================================
-
Jürgen Bosch
University of Washington
Dept. of Biochemistry, K-426
1705 NE Pacific Street
Seattle, WA 98195
Box 357742
Phone: +1-206-616-4510
FAX: +1-206-685-7002
Web: http://faculty.washington.edu/jbosch
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