The macromolecular Crystallographic Information File (mmCIF) format is an extensible standard for the representation of macromolecular structures, including proteins and nucleic acids. Developed by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB), mmCIF addresses limitations of the traditional PDB format by offering greater flexibility and capacity for complex data. It supports metadata such as atomic coordinates, experimental data, and annotations, and is structured in a tabular manner suitable for modern data management systems.

For more information, please refer to the official mmCIF format documentation.

ATSAS-specific limitations:

  • Only the first data_ block in CIF/mmCIF files is read. Multi-block CIF files are not supported.
  • Chain-IDs are assumed to be single-character only. Multi-character chain IDs (example: 8AYE) are not supported.

See also: .pdb

Applications that read .cif:

  • bunch - Rigid body modelling of multidomain proteins.
  • cifop - Moves, shifts, rotates and aligns atomic and dummy atom models.
  • cifsup - Superposition of atomic and dummy atom models.
  • crysol - Calculates X-ray scattering patterns from atomic structures
  • dammif - Rapid ab-initio bead modelling
  • dammin - Ab-initio bead modelling
  • elllip - Arranges quasi-atomistic models of liposomes with elliptical shapes.
  • ffmaker - Assembles form-factor files for eom and oligomer.
  • launcher - ATSAS launcher
  • nmator - Flexible refinement in torsion-angle space.
  • oligomer - Determine volume fractions of a multi-component mixture.
  • pdb2seq - Convert atomic models to residue sequence
  • pre_bunch - Rigid body modelling of multidomain proteins.
  • sasres - Resolution assessment of models obtained from experimental data.
  • sreflex - Flexible refinement in cartesian space.

Applications that write .cif:

  • bodies - Fit geometric shapes to SAS data; predict SAS data of geometric shapes
  • bunch - Rigid body modelling of multidomain proteins.
  • cifop - Moves, shifts, rotates and aligns atomic and dummy atom models.
  • cifsup - Superposition of atomic and dummy atom models.
  • coral - Rigid body modelling of multidomain proteins.
  • dammif - Rapid ab-initio bead modelling
  • dammin - Ab-initio bead modelling
  • elllip - Arranges quasi-atomistic models of liposomes with elliptical shapes.
  • em2dam - Converts EM-maps to dummy atom models.
  • launcher - ATSAS launcher
  • nmator - Flexible refinement in torsion-angle space.
  • pre_bunch - Rigid body modelling of multidomain proteins.
  • sreflex - Flexible refinement in cartesian space.