[Chimera-users] Creating Bonds between Models

[Elaine Meng]

Hello Draven,
You could continue to use Chimera for this, since there is a Join Models section in the Build Structure tool (in  menu under Tools... Structure Editing).
<https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ContributedSoftware/editing/editing.html#join>

We are at this very moment working on adding this functionality to ChimeraX, so if you get today's daily build, you can form peptide bonds between different models with the command "build join peptide" -- it is not yet available as a graphical interface, however, and the kinks are still being worked out.  There is a still a bug if you specify "phi" when the model that is being moved contains more than one chain.  If you want to specify "phi" but one of the models has more than one chain, use the "move" option to make the other model move instead.  Here is the help for this brand-new command in my personal preview since it is not yet up on the website, although it should appear there tomorrow:
<https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/meng/chimerax/vdocs/user/commands/build.html#join>

The ability to add other types of bonds (nonpeptide) between models is not available yet.  You can combine multiple models into one and then form a bond, but that does not take care of positioning between the models like the joining capability above.  Instead you would have to manually move the models into the proper positions first.  Both Chimera and ChimeraX have a "combine" command to merge multiple models into one without repositioning.

By the way, if you want to ask questions about ChimeraX specifically, there is a separate mailing list chimerax-users at cgl.ucsf.edu CC'd here.

I hope this helps,
Elaine
-----
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                       
UCSF Chimera(X) team
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco

> On Apr 25, 2022, at 12:37 PM, Draven Houser via Chimera-users <chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> I am trying to build a structure in chimeraX that is a combination of several other known structures. To do this I need to be able to create bonds between different models in the software, but this doesn't seem to be possible for the moment. Can anyone suggest a workaround for this? Thanks!
> Best regards,
> Draven Houser