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I'm using R and its Rpdb package to work with PDB files. I use the read.pdb function but, nevertheless, I couldn't find the argument which will allow me to view the SEQRES section and the full amino-acid sequence of the protein.

For example, I want to find which amino-acid is in the 17th position of the sequence and I want to extract it from the 'SRQRES' section in the PDB file (the original length of the sequence was reduced for the sake of the example):

SEQRES   1 A  390  GLU PRO GLU TRP THR TYR PRO ARG LEU SER CYS GLN GLY          
SEQRES   2 A  390  SER THR PHE GLN LYS ALA LEU LEU ILE SER PRO HIS ARG          
SEQRES   3 A  390  PHE GLY GLU ALA ARG GLY ASN SER ALA PRO LEU ILE ILE          
SEQRES   4 A  390  ARG GLU PRO PHE ILE ALA CYS GLY PRO LYS GLU CYS LYS          
SEQRES   5 A  390  HIS PHE ALA LEU THR HIS TYR ALA ALA GLN PRO GLY GLY          
SEQRES   6 A  390  TYR TYR ASN GLY THR ARG GLU ASP ARG ASN LYS LEU ARG          
SEQRES   7 A  390  HIS LEU ILE SER VAL LYS LEU GLY LYS ILE PRO THR VAL          
SEQRES   8 A  390  GLU ASN SER ILE PHE HIS MET ALA ALA TRP SER GLY SER          
SEQRES   9 A  390  ALA CYS HIS ASP GLY ARG GLU TRP THR TYR ILE GLY VAL          
SEQRES  10 A  390  ASP GLY PRO ASP SER ASN ALA LEU ILE LYS ILE LYS TYR

...

The original file can be found here 1a4g.pdb.

Any ideas on how to accomplish that?

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  • $\begingroup$ Please edit your question and add a minimal, reproducible example we can use to test our answers. Ideally, give us a PDB file we can use and the code you are trying that fails. $\endgroup$
    – terdon ♦
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 20:01
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    $\begingroup$ Generally libraries that read PDB files interpret only a subset of records from the PDB file. I don't know Rpdb, but if it can't read SEQRES then, well, it can't. You can either code it yourself or look for another library. $\endgroup$
    – marcin
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 21:15

1 Answer 1

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I have not used Rpdb but I have used, and would recommend, bio3d.

To read the PDB file 1A4G:

library(bio3d)
pdb1a4g <- read.pdb("1a4g")

To get the SEQRES information, there are two options. Get it from the pdb object directly:

seq1a4g <- pdb1a4g$seqres

Or call pdbseq:

seq1a4g <- pdbseq(pdb1a4g)

Using the second method, the 17th position (note this is not the same as the 17th position of the original protein sequence):

seq1a4g[17]
 92 
"Q"
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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you. How come pdbfile$seqres and pdbseq(pdbfile) aren't the same? Which one is more reliable? $\endgroup$
    – Adrian Smith
    Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 11:22
  • $\begingroup$ The first one is just accessing a property of the pdb object. Think of it as having a variable attached which you can read, a bit like a column of a data frame. The second is a function which has been written to access, parse and format the data. So they're both "reliable", you choose whichever is easier to work with for your use case. $\endgroup$
    – neilfws
    Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 11:53
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, but I've noticed that both functions return a different vector (as can be seen with "1d1v.pdb" file for example). How come? $\endgroup$
    – Adrian Smith
    Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 12:00
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    $\begingroup$ If you look at the PDB record for 1D1V, there's a section titled "MISSING RESIDUES". It tells you that residues 39-66 are missing from the structure for chain A. So pdbseq() shows you the residues present in the structure, starting from G67. $seqres returns the complete sequence that you'd see in the FASTA record, including the missing residues. $\endgroup$
    – neilfws
    Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 21:13

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