Towards the automatic interpretation of macromolecular electron-density maps: qualitative and quantitative matching of protein sequence to map.

The matching of the known polypeptide sequence to the electron density is a critical step in solving protein structures by the crystallographic method. Tools have been developed to help in defining the placement of the sequence, both qualitatively and quantitatively. They have been tested with good results on two proteins whose structures were solved by the MIR method.