Variability in automated assignment of NOESY spectra and three-dimensional structure determination: a test case on three small disulfide-bonded proteins.

Three independent runs of automatic assignment and structure calculations were performed on three small proteins, calcicludine from the venom of the green mamba Dendroaspis angusticeps, kappa-conotoxin PVIIA from the purple cone Conus purpurascens and HsTX1, a short scorpion toxin from the venom of Heterometrus spinnifer. At the end of all the runs, the number of cross peaks which remained unassigned (0.6%, 1.4% and 2% for calcicludine, kappa-conotoxin and HsTX1, respectively), as well as the number of constraints which were rejected as producing systematic violations (2.7%, 1.0%, and 1.4% for calcicludine, kappa-conotoxin and HsTX1, respectively) were low. The conformation of the initial model used in the procedure (linear model or constructed by homology) has no influence on the final structures. Mainly two parameters control the procedure: the chemical shift tolerance and the cut-off distance. Independent runs of structure calculations, using the same parameters, yield structures for which the rmsd between averaged structures and the rmsd around each averaged structure were of the same order of magnitude. A different cut-off distance and a different chemical shift tolerance yield rmsd values on final average structures which did not differ more than 0.5 A compared to the rmsd obtained around the averaged structure for each calculation. These results show that the procedure is robust when applied to such a small disulfide-bonded protein.