DSSR-Jmol featured in cover image of NAR'17 web-server issue

[xiangjun]

The DSSR-Jmol paper, titled "DSSR-enhanced visualization of nucleic acid structures in Jmol", has been officially published in the 2017 web-server issue of Nucleic Acids Research (NAR). Notably, the work has been featured in the cover image, as shown below:

Caption: 3D interactive visualization of selected RNA structural features enabled by the DSSR-Jmol integration (http://jmol.x3dna.org). Clockwise from upper left: Structure of the xpt-pbuX guanine riboswitch in complex with hypoxanthine (PDB id: 4fe5) in ‘base blocks’ representation. The three-way junction loop encompassing the metabolite (in space-filling representation) is color-coded by base identity: A, red; C, yellow; G, green; U, cyan. The loop-loop interaction (a kissing-loop motif) at the top is highlighted in red (upper left corner). Structure of the Thermus thermophilus 30S ribosomal subunit in complex with antibiotics (PDB id: 1fjg) in step diagram. The 16S ribosomal RNA is color-coded in spectrum with the 5′-end in blue and the 3′-end in red (upper middle). Structure of the classic L-shaped yeast phenylalanine tRNA (PDB id: 1ehz) in step diagram, with the three hairpin loops highlighted in red and the [2,1,5,0] four-way junction loop in blue (upper right corner). Structure of the Pistol self-cleaving ribozyme (PDB id: 5ktj), showcasing (in red) the horizontal helix in space-filling representation. The helix is composed of six short stems stabilized via coaxial stacking interactions (bottom).

The DSSR-Jmol integration bridges the DSSR command-line analyzing tool and the Jmol molecular viewer seamlessly together via the standard JSON interface. Now users can select DSSR-derived RNA structural features (such as base pairs, double helices, various loops, etc.) and visualize them in novel representations in Jmol interactively. Moreover, fine-grained characteristics of these features can be queried via the Jmol SQL for DSSR. The DSSR-Jmol integration fills a gap in RNA structural bioinformatics, and brings RNA visualization to an entirely new level. The web interface (http://jmol.x3dna.org) is fully functional and easy to use, serving a huge user base of researchers, educators, and students alike.

Featured as the cover image of the 2017 NAR web-server issue, DSSR's publicity would surely increase through the DSSR-Jmol integration. Additionally, I've written a new post (on the 3DNA Forum) that provides the scripts and datafiles used to create the cover image.