Validation of protein models from Cα coordinates alone

The Protein Data Bank contains a number of structures for which only the coordinates of the Cα atoms have been deposited. Although many tools are available for the validation of all-atom protein models, hardly any of these can be used to assess the quality of models for which only Cα coordinates are available. Two rapid and simple tests to assess the quality of the Cα backbone of a protein model are described, one based on the distribution of...