A collection of new software tools is presented for the analysis of geometrical, chemical and crystallographic data from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). This software supersedes the program Vista. The new functionality is integrated into the program Mercury in order to provide statistical, charting and plotting options alongside three-dimensional structural visualization and analysis. The integration also permits immediate access to other information about specific CSD entries through the Mercury framework, a common requirement in CSD data analyses. In addition, the new software includes a range of more advanced features focused towards structural analysis such as principal components analysis, cone-angle correction in hydrogen-bond analyses and the ability to deal with topological symmetry that may be exhibited in molecular search fragments.

The Protein Data Bank in Europe (http://pdbe.org) accepts and annotates depositions of macromolecular structure data in the PDB and EMDB archives and enriches, integrates and disseminates structural information in a variety of ways. The PDBe website has been redesigned based on an analysis of user requirements, and now offers intuitive access to improved and value-added macromolecular structure information. Unique value-added information includes lists of reviews and research articles that cite or mention PDB entries as well as access to figures and legends from full-text open-access publications that describe PDB entries. A powerful new query system not only shows all the PDB entries that match a given query, but also shows the ‘best structures’ for a given macromolecule, ligand complex or sequence family using data-quality information from the wwPDB validation reports. A PDBe RESTful API has been developed to provide unified access to macromolecular structure data available in the PDB and EMDB archives as well as value-added annotations, e.g. regarding structure quality and up-to-date cross-reference information from the SIFTS resource. Taken together, these new developments facilitate unified access to macromolecular structure data in an intuitive way for non-expert users and support expert users in analysing macromolecular structure data.

The Protein Data Bank in Europe (pdbe.org) is a founding member of the Worldwide PDB consortium (wwPDB; wwpdb.org) and as such is actively engaged in the deposition, annotation, remediation and dissemination of macromolecular structure data through the single global archive for such data, the PDB. Similarly, PDBe is a member of the EMDataBank organisation (emdatabank.org), which manages the EMDB archive for electron microscopy data. PDBe also develops tools that help the biomedical science community to make effective use of the data in the PDB and EMDB for their research. Here we describe new or improved services, including updated SIFTS mappings to other bioinformatics resources, a new browser for the PDB archive based on Gene Ontology (GO) annotation, updates to the analysis of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance-derived structures, redesigned search and browse interfaces, and new or updated visualisation and validation tools for EMDB entries.

The Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) is a vast and ever growing compendium of accurate three-dimensional structures that has massive chemical diversity across organic and metal-organic compounds. For these reasons, the CSD is finding significant uses in chemical education, and these applications are reviewed. As part of the teaching initiative of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), a teaching subset of more than 500 CSD structures has been created that illustrate key chemical concepts, and a number of teaching modules have been devised that make use of this subset in a teaching environment. All of this material is freely available from the CCDC website, and the subset can be freely viewed and interrogated using WebCSD, an internet application for searching and displaying CSD information content. In some cases, however, the complete CSD System is required for specific educational applications, and some examples of these more extensive teaching modules are also discussed. The educational value of visualizing real three-dimensional structures, and of handling real experimental results, is stressed throughout.

Knowledge of the three-dimensional (3D) nature of chemical compounds is fundamental to the education of every chemist. In this context, the use of experimentally measured 3D structure, as opposed to idealized computationally generated models, is of great pedagogical value. Five hundred structures that have important applications in chemistry and chemical education were carefully selected from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) of over half a million small organic and metal−organic crystal structures determined experimentally by X-ray diffraction. The 500-structure teaching subset is available to educators and students via a simple Web interface, with embedded 3D visualization, at no cost. This unique teaching resource provides not only the 3D structure of compounds but also additional chemical information (compound name, molecular formula, etc.) and full publication details with links to the primary literature. In this article, we summarize the composition of the teaching subset and describe how it can be accessed online. We also describe how the Mercury visualizer can be downloaded for local visualization and manipulation of structures in the teaching subset or to obtain other crystal structure information.

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A series of online interactive teaching units have been developed that illustrate the use of experimentally measured three-dimensional (3D) structures to teach fundamental chemistry concepts. The units integrate a 500-structure subset of the Cambridge Structural Database specially chosen for their pedagogical value. The units span a number of key chemical concepts (aromaticity, ring strain and conformation, stereochemistry and chirality, VSEPR, and hapticity) and guide students via a Web-based interface to visualize and interact with a diverse range of molecules. The units were designed to help students develop a visual understanding of 3D chemical structure and gain an appreciation of the unique advantages afforded by working with experimentally measured data.

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