The PROCHECK suite of programs provides a detailed check on the stereochemistry of a protein structure. Its outputs comprise a number of plots in PostScript format and a comprehensive residue‐by‐residue listing. These give an assessment of the overall quality of the structure as compared with well refined structures of the same resolution and also highlight regions that may need further investigation. The PROCHECK programs are useful for assessing the quality not only of protein structures in the process of being solved but also of existing structures and of those being modelled on known structures.

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The three-dimensional structure of the eye lens protein, bovine gamma-crystallin II, has been determined at 2.6 A resolution. The protein has a tow domain beta-structure, folded into four remarkably similar 'Greed key' motifs, and shows the highest internal symmetry of any protein studied by X-ray analysis. Although the symmetrical structure seems very stable, the arrangement of the sulphydryl groups would allow intramolecular cross-linking leading to possible destabilization, and intermolecular cross-linking leading to aggregation, both of which may be important to cataract formation.

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Clostridium perfringens alpha-toxin is the key virulence determinant in gas gangrene and has also been implicated in the pathogenesis of sudden death syndrome in young animals. The toxin is a 370-residue, zinc metalloenzyme that has phospholipase C activity, and can bind to membranes in the presence of calcium. The crystal structure of the enzyme reveals a two-domain protein. The N-terminal domain shows an anticipated structural similarity to Bacillus cereus phosphatidylcholine-specific phospholipase C (PC-PLC). The C-terminal domain shows a strong structural analogy to eukaryotic calcium-binding C2 domains. We believe this is the first example of such a domain in prokaryotes. This type of domain has been found to act as a phospholipid and/or calcium-binding domain in intracellular second messenger proteins and, interestingly, these pathways are perturbed in cells treated with alpha-toxin. Finally, a possible mechanism for alpha-toxin attack on membrane-packed phospholipid is described, which rationalizes its toxicity when compared to other, non-haemolytic, but homologous phospholipases C.