AtomSets

Predefined Atom Sets

Jmol recognizes and uses several keywords or tokens for several purposes: commands in the scripting language, colors, etc. Among them, keywords for predefined atom sets:

By element names:

carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, sulphur, etc.

By type of molecule:

protein, nucleic, dna, rna, water, solvent, ligand...

Parts in proteins:

Backbone

• Peptide bond: N, H (bound to N), CA (alpha carbon), C (carbonyl carbon), O or O1 (bound to C)
• Terminus: OXT (second carbonyl oxygen on C-terminus)

Parts in nucleic acids:

Backbone

Inclusion in this set is determined by atom id, as follows:

• Phosphate groups:
  • phosphorus: P
  • oxygens bound to phosphorus: O1P, O2P

• Atoms in pentose:
  • carbon ring: C1', C2', C3', C4', C5'
  • hydrogens attached to carbon ring: H1', 1H2', 2H2' (only DNA), H3', H4', 1H5' and 2H5'
  • hydroxyls: O2', O3', O4', O5', 2HO' (H on 2'-hydroxyl, only RNA)

Note: some (many?) files label pentose atoms with asterisk instead of prime signs. How does Jmol cope with this? Certainly, given the asterisk is a wilcard, if one uses "select C3*" will get pentose carbons either labeled with prime or asterisk!.

• Termini:
  • O5T : 5'-terminus oxygen (no phosphate)
  • H5T : 5'-terminus hydrogen (attached to O5T or O5')
  • H3T : 3'-terminus hydrogen (on 3'-hydroxyl)

• Atoms in bases:
  • ring, both purines and pyrimidines: N1, C2, N3, C4, C5, C6
  • ring, purines: N7, C8, N9
  • ring, pyrimidines: O2
  • substituents on ring:
    • N4 unique to C
    • N2 unique to G
    • N6 unique to A
    • C5M unique to T
    • O6 in G and I
    • O4 in T and U
    • S4 unique to thio-U

Sidechain

Defined as (not backbone).

Bases

Synonim of sidechain.

Contributors

AngelHerraez, NicolasVervelle, Pimpim, JimHu, Miguel