Structure blurring

All functions used to generate simulated maps from protein models, and to generate other 3D volumes, such as masks are found in TEMPy.protein.structure_blurrer.

TEMPy contains multiple methods for generating (or blurring) simulated maps. Most of these methods generate simulated maps by modelling density around each atom as a 3D gaussian; a simulated map is generated by summing the guassians for all atoms in a model. This calculation can be done in fourier space using gaussian_blur , or in real space using gaussian_blur_real_space .

In version 2.0.0, we introduced a new implementation for TEMPy real space blurring, using the voxcov library. This implementation is significantly faster to calculate than the original method for better than 10A maps. To use this new implementation, initialise a StructureBlurrer object with the with_vc keyword argument set to True (see below).

Structure Blurring Code Example

For example, to score a model (here GroEL model 7bpx.pdb, from map EMDB entry EMD-13308 solved at 3.4 A resolution) by CCC, one can use guassian_blur_real_space to generate a simulated map (see below) which is used to calculate the CCC using TEMPy’s implementation:

>>> from TEMPy.protein.structure_parser import PDBParser
>>> from TEMPy.maps.map_parser import MapParser
>>> from TEMPy.protein.scoring_functions import ScoringFunctions
>>> from TEMPy.protein.structure_blurrer import StructureBlurrer
>>>
>>> model = PDBParser.read_PDB_file("1CS4", "../tests/test_data/1CS4.pdb")
>>> exp_map = MapParser.readMRC("../tests/test_data/1CS4.mrc")
>>> map_resolution = 8.0
>>> blurrer = StructureBlurrer(with_vc=True)  # use fast real-space blurring
>>> sim_map = blurrer.gaussian_blur_real_space(
...     model,
...     map_resolution,
...     exp_map
... )
>>>
>>> # The simulated map should have the same dimensions as the experimental map
>>> sim_map.box_size() == exp_map.box_size()
True
>>>
>>> sim_map.apix == exp_map.apix
array([ True,  True,  True])
>>>
>>> # We can now see how well the simulated map correlates with the experimental map
>>> scorer = ScoringFunctions()
>>> ccc_score = scorer.CCC(exp_map, sim_map)

For now, all simulated maps are generated using a single, global resolution value. Future updates will introduce the capability to blur maps based on atom B-factors, or based on local resolution in cryo-EM maps.

Note on real space blurring:

All real space blurring functions require a sigma_coeff argument, that defines the width of the Gaussian (multiplied by the map resolution) for each atom. In TEMPy, there are multiple options for the sigma_coeff value, each derived from a specific publication. When no sigma_coeff value is provided 0.356 is typically used.

Available sigma_coeff values:

  • 0.187R corresponding with the Gaussian width of the Fourier transform falling to half the maximum at 1/resolution, as used in Situs (Wriggers et al, 1999);

  • 0.225R which makes the Fourier transform of the distribution fall to 1/e of its maximum value at wavenumber 1/resolution the default in Chimera (Petterson et al, 2004)

  • 0.356R corresponding to the Gaussian width at 1/e maximum height equaling the resolution, an option in Chimera (Petterson et al, 2004);

  • 0.425R the fullwidth half maximum being equal to the resolution, as used by FlexEM (Topf et al, 2008);

  • 0.5R the distance between the two inflection points being the same length as the resolution, an option in Chimera (Petterson et al, 2004);

  • 1R where the sigma value simply equal to the resolution, as used by NMFF (Tama et al, 2004).

For more details refer to the API reference: Link.