Deposition of Half-maps for Certain EM Entries to Become Mandatory

From February 25, 2022, deposition of half-maps for single-particle, single-particle-based helical, and sub-tomogram averaging reconstructions to the EM Data Bank (EMDB) will become mandatory. This change is in response to a long-standing community request to the wwPDB EMDB Core Archive and was also a recommendation from the 2020 wwPDB single-particle cryo-EM data-management workshop (white paper in preparation). Several recommendations from this workshop have already been implemented in the wwPDB OneDep system. These include improvements to wwPDB validation reports and enhancements for capturing metadata via the deposition interface.

Mandatory half-maps must be unfiltered, unmasked, unsharpened, and positioned in the same coordinate-space and orientation as the primary map such that they superimpose. The availability of half-maps will contribute to improved validation of EM structures as reflected in the wwPDB validation reports.

wwPDB strongly urges developers of cryo-EM processing software for the affected modalities to implement support for output of such half-maps (if this is not already available).

Any queries about this policy change can be directed to info@wwpdb.org.

Source: wwPDB News 14 December 2021

Note: EMDB is now an official partner in the Worldwide PDB. See wwPDB News 24 June 2021