Mol* (, also known as Molstar) is a web-based,
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
, software toolkit for analysis and visualization of
macromolecular
A macromolecule is a "molecule of high relative molecular mass, the structure of which essentially comprises the multiple repetition of units derived, actually or conceptually, from molecules of low relative molecular mass." Polymers are physi ...
structures. It was developed as a joint initiative between the
RCSB PDB and
PDBe, based on NGL (developed by RCSB PDB) and LiteMol (developed by PDBe) viewers. Its program for interactive viewing of macromolecular structures in 3D, Mol* Viewer, was published in 2021.
Mol* Viewer (typically referred to as simply Mol*) has a stand-alone version, and is also integrated into a number of scientific tools and databases. Some of its most prominent implementations are the web pages of the PDBe, the RCSB PDB, and the
AlphaFold
AlphaFold is an artificial intelligence (AI) program developed by DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, which performs predictions of protein structure. It is designed using deep learning techniques.
AlphaFold 1 (2018) placed first in the overall ...
Database, where it is used to provide visualizations of every structure on each structure's corresponding entry page. It replaced the integrated NGL and LiteMol viewers previously used by the RCSB PDB and PDBe in 2019.
The code for Mol*, including Mol* Viewer, is hosted on
GitHub
GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...
(under the Open Source
MIT license
The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility.
Unl ...
) and includes modules for retrieving macromolecular structure data from public databases, then compressing, storing and visualizing it.
It uses built-in BinaryCIF and decompression support to aid in handling large structures,
TypeScript
TypeScript (abbreviated as TS) is a high-level programming language that adds static typing with optional type annotations to JavaScript. It is designed for developing large applications and transpiles to JavaScript. It is developed by Micr ...
for web application development, and
WebGL
WebGL (short for Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript Application programming interface, API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-in (computing), plug-ins. WebGL is fully integra ...
for hardware-accelerated 3D rendering.
It adheres to standards of the
open web platform and uses the
React framework.
References
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