SCOP: a structural classification of proteins database

The Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) database provides a detail ed and comprehensive description of the relationships of all known proteins structures. The classification is on hierarchical levels: the first two le vels, family and superfamily, describe near and far evolutionary relationsh ips; the third, fold, describes geometrical relationships. The distinction between evolutionary relationships and those that arise from the physics an d chemistry of proteins is a feature that is unique to this database, so fa r. The database can be used as a source of data to calibrate sequence searc h algorithms and for the generation of population statistics on protein str uctures. The database and its associated files are freely accessible from a number of WWW sites mirrored from URL http://scop.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/scop/.