Computer Software for Visualizing Protein Structures

 The 3-D structures of proteins and nucleic acids can be discussed on flat paper, but they lose much of their magic and charm.  To enable you to reflect on structures at you own speed and leisure it would be of great benefit for you to acquire some free software.  All of this software can be acquired over the Internet
 In order to be useful, software for teaching should be freely available with good manuals and some tutorials.  Several such packages exist including RasMol, DeepView (or SwissPDB Viewer), Protein Explorer, and WPDB.  I will be using mostly DeepView  in class so there is some advantage in using that as your main visualization tool.

DeepView (all platforms)
 DeepView, also known as Swiss-PDBViewer can be obtained from http://www.expasy.ch/spdbv/mainpage.htm and following the links and prompts.  The most recent version is 3.7 beta2.  An excellent tutorial and user manual for DeepView is also available from Gale Rhodes' homepage at the University of Southern Maine:  http://www.usm.maine.edu/~rhodes/SPVTut/index.html

RasMol (all platforms)
 A number of different versions of RasMol can be found on the web.  Of most utility are RasMol 2.7 which can be found at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/software/RasMol_2.7.1/  run by Herbert J. Bernstein.  You can retrieve RasMol for several different computer operating system including Windows Mac, Linux and others.  You may also get compressed files (g-zipped) or uncompressed.  S lipghtly older version (2.6 b2a) is also available at: http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/getras.htm along with documentation.

Protein Explorer (Windows and Mac)
 Protein Explorer is provided by Dr. Eric Martz at the University of Massachusetts.  This more advanced form of RasMol incorporates many of the same command instructions and visual tools plus much more.  It can be run off the web at  http://molvis.sdsc.edu/protexpl/frntdoor.htm You can also download a version for use on your own computer at: http://www.umass.edu/microbio/chime/regisfrm/  . You must register to download the appropriate files.  Follow the instructions carefully!
 

  You may also want wish to retrieve software called Kinemage.  It is produced by the journal Protein Science and has been made publicly accessible.  The main program is a viewer called Mage which, like RasWin, allows one to visualize, rotate, resize in real time, protein x-ray crystal structures that have been deposited in the Protein Databank (these are commonly known as "pdb" files). Furthermore, some of the more useful structures have already been edited for clarity and have been deposited in the journal's archive.  These are also available to us over the Web.  It is very simple to use and is available in both Mac and PC/Windows versions.  We will only be using it to look at structures, but companion software called PreKin can also be used to construct your own images from pdb files.

 The Kinemage software is obtainable at:  http://kinemage.biochem.duke.edu/

 Many files are available for viewing different types of proteins and substructures, and even some DNA structures.  The Kinemage supplement to the textbook Protein Structure  by Branden and Tooze is available on the Web at: ftp://kinemage.biochem.duke.edu/pub/kinfiles/BT2kins/  and the older version at http://www.chem.uwec.edu/Chem406/B&TSupp.html

Also available are some Kinemage "tours" of protein structure.  These are "ProTour#.kin" files where # is 1 to 8.  These can be found at: http://kinemage.biochem.duke.edu/kinemage/kinlist.php#tour.