From v1.1.3-2014jun18, DSSR has an additional output of RNA secondary structures in BPSEQ format. A sample file for PDB entry 1msy is shown below.
Filename: dssr-2ndstrs.bpseq Organism: DSSR-derived secondary structure [1msy] Accession Number: DSSR v1.1.4-2014aug09 (xiangjun@x3dna.org) Citation: Please cite 3DNA/DSSR (see http://home.x3dna.org) 1 U 0 # name=A.U2647 2 G 26 # name=A.G2648, pairedNt=A.U2672 3 C 25 # name=A.C2649, pairedNt=A.G2671 4 U 24 # name=A.U2650, pairedNt=A.A2670 5 C 23 # name=A.C2651, pairedNt=A.G2669 6 C 22 # name=A.C2652, pairedNt=A.G2668 7 U 0 # name=A.U2653 8 A 0 # name=A.A2654 9 G 0 # name=A.G2655 10 U 0 # name=A.U2656 11 A 0 # name=A.A2657 12 C 17 # name=A.C2658, pairedNt=A.G2663 13 G 0 # name=A.G2659 14 U 0 # name=A.U2660 15 A 0 # name=A.A2661 16 A 0 # name=A.A2662 17 G 12 # name=A.G2663, pairedNt=A.C2658 18 G 0 # name=A.G2664 19 A 0 # name=A.A2665 20 C 0 # name=A.C2666 21 C 0 # name=A.C2667 22 G 6 # name=A.G2668, pairedNt=A.C2652 23 G 5 # name=A.G2669, pairedNt=A.C2651 24 A 4 # name=A.A2670, pairedNt=A.U2650 25 G 3 # name=A.G2671, pairedNt=A.C2649 26 U 2 # name=A.U2672, pairedNt=A.G2648 27 G 0 # name=A.G2673
Based on online sources, BPSEQ has originated from the Comparative RNA Web site developed by the Gutell lab. CRW files contain four header lines, describing the file name, organism, accession number, and a general remark. Thereafter, there is one line per base in the molecule, listing the position of the base (starting from 1), the one-letter base name (A,C,G,U etc), and the position number of the base to which it is paired. If the base is unpaired, zero (0) is put in the third column. In the above sample BPSEQ file derived from DSSR, detailed information about the base and its paired base (if any) comes after the #
symbol.
Compared to dot-bracket notation (dbn) and connect-table (.ct) format, BPSEQ is simpler but less expressive. Nevertheless, the format is well-supported in bioinformatic tools on RNA secondary structures. It only seems fitting that DSSR now produces secondary structures in .bpseq (with default file name dssr-2ndstrs.bpseq
), in addition to .dbn and .ct. Technically, adding the BPSEQ output to DSSR is trivial given the infrastructure already in place.