An introduction to the proceedings of the CCP4 Study Weekend held at the University of Warwick on the 6–7 January 2011.

The general principles behind the macromolecular crystal structure refinement program REFMAC5 are described.

This paper describes various components of the macromolecular crystallographic refinement program REFMAC5, which is distributed as part of the CCP4 suite. REFMAC5 utilizes different likelihood functions depending on the diffraction data employed (amplitudes or intensities), the presence of twinning and the availability of SAD/SIRAS experimental diffraction data. To ensure chemical and structural integrity of the refined model, REFMAC5 offers several classes of restraints and choices of model parameterization. Reliable models at resolutions at least as low as 4 Å can be achieved thanks to low-resolution refinement tools such as secondary-structure restraints, restraints to known homologous structures, automatic global and local NCS restraints, ‘jelly-body’ restraints and the use of novel long-range restraints on atomic displacement parameters (ADPs) based on the Kullback–Leibler divergence. REFMAC5 additionally offers TLS parameterization and, when high-resolution data are available, fast refinement of anisotropic ADPs. Refinement in the presence of twinning is performed in a fully automated fashion. REFMAC5 is a flexible and highly optimized refinement package that is ideally suited for refinement across the entire resolution spectrum encountered in macromolecular crystallography.

Preliminary crystallographic data are reported for 1H-3-hydroxy-4-oxoquinaldine 2,4-dioxygenase (HOD) from A. nitroguajacolicus Rü61a.

1H-3-Hydroxy-4-oxoquinaldine 2,4-dioxygenase (HOD) is a cofactor-devoid dioxygenase that is involved in the anthranilate pathway of quinaldine degradation. HOD has been proposed to belong to the α/β-hydrolase-fold superfamily of enzymes. N-terminally His6-tagged HOD has been crystallized by the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method using sodium/potassium tartrate as a precipitant and CuCl2 as an additive. The structure was solved by the single anomalous dispersion (SAD) technique using data collected to 3.5 Å resolution at the Cu absorption peak wavelength. The crystals belong to the primitive tetragonal space group P43212, with unit-cell parameters a = b = 153.788, c = 120.872 Å.