mmCIF File Format
The mmCIF file format (macromolecular Crystallographic
Information) was developed under the auspices of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) to extend the Crystallographic Information
File (CIF) data representation used for describing small molecule
structures and associated diffraction experiments.
Merits of mmCIF file format
- Large structures (containing >62 chains and/or 99999 ATOM
records) that cannot be fully represented in the PDB file format are
available in the PDB archive as single PDBx/mmCIF files.
- PDBx/mmCIF file format provides richer data annotation
- PDBx/mmCIF became the standard PDB archive format in 2014.
Since 2016 the PDB File Format is no longer being modified or
extended to support new content.
mmCIF file format support for importing 3D structure data from
flat file and EMBL-PDBe via mmCIF was added in Jalview 2.9.1