SCOP: a structural classification of proteins database.

The Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) database provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the relationships of all known proteins structures. The classification is on hierarchical levels: the first two levels, family and superfamily, describe near and far evolutionary relationships; the third, fold, describes geometrical relationships. The distinction between evolutionary relationships and those that arise from the physics and chemistry of proteins is a feature that is unique to this database, so far. SCOP also provides for each structure links to atomic co-ordinates, images of the structures, interactive viewers, sequence data, data on any conformational changes related to function and literature references. The database is freely accessible on the World Wide Web (WWW) with an entry point at URL http://scop.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/scop/