A comparison between experimental and theoretical aspherical-atom scattering factors for charge-density refinement of large molecules.

The differences between two databases describing the polypeptide main chain in terms of charge-density parameters, directly usable in protein structure refinements, are discussed. These databases contain averaged multipole populations of peptide pseudo-atoms obtained from refinement against theoretical simulated data and against high-resolution experimental data on small peptide or amino acid molecules. The main discrepancy becomes apparent when electrostatic properties are calculated.