Recently, I came across the article URS DataBase: universe of RNA structures and their motifs by Baulin et al. in Database, an online journal of biological databases and curation. I am glad to see that DSSR is used in the URSDB, as quoted below.
In the “Input data” subsection of “Materials and methods”:
RNA-containing structures were extracted from the PDB in mmCIF format; each file was divided into models. The base pairs (both canonical and non-canonical) and dinucleotide steps were annotated using the DSSR program from 3DNA toolkit (26). We also exploited detailed information provided by DSSR on given elements such as geometric parameters, types according to different classifications and various details on base conformations.
Moreover, under “Future development”, the authors said:
We plan to perform a comparative analysis of programs that annotate base pairs in RNA-containing PDB files. We will consider the four most popular programs, FR3D (35), MC-Annotate (36), RNAView (37) and DSSR (26). According to the analysis the annotation of the base pairs will be refined. In addition, we plan to include in the database annotations of base-phosphate, base-ribose and base stacking contacts and to implement search of such data.
It is gratifying to see DSSR listed as one of “the four most popular programs” for annotating RNA base pairs. It’d also be interesting to see how DSSR compares with FR3D, MC-Annotate, and RNAView from the user’s perspective.
