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RCSB PDB

RCSB Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB) is a scientific data resource providing free, open access to the 3D structural data of biological macromolecules including proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies. It serves researchers worldwide through a suite of programmatic APIs covering data retrieval, full-text and attribute search, sequence and structure similarity search, molecular model data access, volumetric electron density maps, sequence coordinate alignments, and structure alignment calculations.

6 APIs 0 Features
Structural BiologyProteomicsBioinformaticsGenomicsLife SciencesOpen DataResearchMacromoleculesCrystallographyNMR

APIs

RCSB PDB Data API

Provides structured access to the complete RCSB PDB holdings via REST and GraphQL interfaces. Given a known PDB identifier, callers can retrieve rich JSON metadata about entries...

RCSB PDB Search API

Full-featured search API for locating PDB identifiers that match complex query conditions. Supports text attribute searches, BLAST-like sequence similarity (protein, DNA, RNA), ...

RCSB PDB ModelServer API

Provides on-demand access to subsets of macromolecular model data stored in PDBx/mmCIF format. Callers can request individual chains, residue ranges, ligand environments, or sym...

RCSB PDB VolumeServer API

Delivers subsets of volumetric electron density and cryo-EM map data associated with PDB entries. Instead of downloading large map files, researchers can query a specific region...

RCSB PDB Sequence Coordinates API

GraphQL service providing sequence-level alignments between structural databases and external sequence resources. Exposes two core queries — alignment and annotations — enabling...

RCSB PDB Structure Alignment API

Asynchronous REST API that performs programmatic structure alignment calculations between PDB entries or user-supplied coordinate files. Callers submit an alignment job via POST...

Resources

🔗
JSONLd
JSONLd
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Website
Website
🔗
Documentation
Documentation
🚀
GettingStarted
GettingStarted
🔗
FileDownloads
FileDownloads
👥
GitHub
GitHub
📦
PythonSDK
PythonSDK
📦
JavaScriptSDK
JavaScriptSDK
🟢
StatusPage
StatusPage
🔗
RateLimits
RateLimits
🔗
Plans
Plans
🔗
FinOps
FinOps
🔗
Contact
Contact
🔗
MailingList
MailingList

Sources

Raw ↑ 
aid: pdb
name: RCSB PDB
description: RCSB Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB) is a scientific data resource providing
  free, open access to the 3D structural data of biological macromolecules including
  proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies. It serves researchers worldwide
  through a suite of programmatic APIs covering data retrieval, full-text and attribute
  search, sequence and structure similarity search, molecular model data access, volumetric
  electron density maps, sequence coordinate alignments, and structure alignment calculations.
image: https://www.rcsb.org/img/rcsb_logo.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/pdb/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
humanURL: https://www.rcsb.org
baseURL: https://data.rcsb.org
tags:
- Structural Biology
- Proteomics
- Bioinformatics
- Genomics
- Life Sciences
- Open Data
- Research
- Macromolecules
- Crystallography
- NMR
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
type: Index
position: Producer
access: Open
apis:
- aid: pdb:rcsb-pdb-data-api
  name: RCSB PDB Data API
  description: Provides structured access to the complete RCSB PDB holdings via REST
    and GraphQL interfaces. Given a known PDB identifier, callers can retrieve rich
    JSON metadata about entries, polymer entities, non-polymer entities (ligands),
    polymer entity instances (chains), assemblies, branched entities, and chemical
    components. The REST surface mirrors an OpenAPI/ReDoc contract while the GraphQL
    endpoint supports flexible field selection and nested queries.
  humanURL: https://data.rcsb.org
  baseURL: https://data.rcsb.org/rest/v1/core
  tags:
  - Structural Biology
  - Protein Data
  - GraphQL
  - REST
  - JSON
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://data.rcsb.org/redoc/index.html
  - type: GraphQL
    url: https://data.rcsb.org/graphql
  - type: GraphQLExplorer
    url: https://data.rcsb.org/graphiql/index.html
  - type: PythonSDK
    url: https://github.com/rcsb/py-rcsb-api
  - type: JavaScriptSDK
    url: https://github.com/rcsb/rcsb-api-tools
  - type: GraphQLSchema
    url: graphql/pdb-schema.graphql
  - type: GraphQLDocumentation
    url: graphql/pdb-graphql.md
  contact:
  - type: Email
    url: mailto:info@rcsb.org
  - type: MailingList
    url: mailto:api+subscribe@rcsb.org
- aid: pdb:rcsb-pdb-search-api
  name: RCSB PDB Search API
  description: Full-featured search API for locating PDB identifiers that match complex
    query conditions. Supports text attribute searches, BLAST-like sequence similarity
    (protein, DNA, RNA), chemical small-molecule queries (formula, SMILES, InChI),
    3D structure embedding searches, sequence motif searches, structural motif searches,
    and unstructured full-text searches. Results support pagination (up to 10,000
    hits), sorting, faceted aggregations, and grouping by sequence identity or UniProt
    accession. Returns entries, assemblies, polymer entities, non-polymer entities,
    polymer instances, or chemical component identifiers.
  humanURL: https://search.rcsb.org
  baseURL: https://search.rcsb.org/rcsbsearch/v2/query
  tags:
  - Search
  - Sequence Search
  - Structure Search
  - Chemical Search
  - BLAST
  - SMILES
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://search.rcsb.org/redoc/index.html
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.rcsb.org/docs/programmatic-access/web-apis-overview
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/rcsb-pdb-search-api.json
  contact:
  - type: Email
    url: mailto:info@rcsb.org
  - type: MailingList
    url: mailto:api+subscribe@rcsb.org
- aid: pdb:rcsb-pdb-model-server-api
  name: RCSB PDB ModelServer API
  description: Provides on-demand access to subsets of macromolecular model data stored
    in PDBx/mmCIF format. Callers can request individual chains, residue ranges, ligand
    environments, or symmetry-expanded assemblies without downloading full structure
    files, enabling efficient downstream visualization and analysis workflows.
  humanURL: https://models.rcsb.org
  baseURL: https://models.rcsb.org
  tags:
  - Macromolecular Models
  - mmCIF
  - Structure Coordinates
  - Subset Access
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://models.rcsb.org
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/rcsb-pdb-model-server-api.json
  contact:
  - type: Email
    url: mailto:info@rcsb.org
- aid: pdb:rcsb-pdb-volume-server-api
  name: RCSB PDB VolumeServer API
  description: Delivers subsets of volumetric electron density and cryo-EM map data
    associated with PDB entries. Instead of downloading large map files, researchers
    can query a specific region around a ligand or residue and retrieve only the relevant
    density slice, accelerating interactive visualization in tools like Mol*.
  humanURL: https://maps.rcsb.org
  baseURL: https://maps.rcsb.org
  tags:
  - Electron Density
  - Cryo-EM
  - Volumetric Data
  - Maps
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://maps.rcsb.org
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/rcsb-pdb-volume-server-api.json
  contact:
  - type: Email
    url: mailto:info@rcsb.org
- aid: pdb:rcsb-pdb-sequence-coordinates-api
  name: RCSB PDB Sequence Coordinates API
  description: GraphQL service providing sequence-level alignments between structural
    databases and external sequence resources. Exposes two core queries — alignment
    and annotations — enabling callers to map PDB chain positions to UniProt, NCBI
    RefSeq (protein and genomic), CATH, SCOPe, and Computed Structure Models (CSMs).
    Replaces the legacy 1D Coordinates Service.
  humanURL: https://sequence-coordinates.rcsb.org
  baseURL: https://sequence-coordinates.rcsb.org/graphql
  tags:
  - Sequence Alignment
  - UniProt
  - NCBI
  - GraphQL
  - Annotations
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://sequence-coordinates.rcsb.org
  - type: GraphQLExplorer
    url: https://sequence-coordinates.rcsb.org/graphiql/index.html
  contact:
  - type: Email
    url: mailto:info@rcsb.org
- aid: pdb:rcsb-pdb-alignment-api
  name: RCSB PDB Structure Alignment API
  description: Asynchronous REST API that performs programmatic structure alignment
    calculations between PDB entries or user-supplied coordinate files. Callers submit
    an alignment job via POST /submit (accepting PDBx/mmCIF, BinaryCIF, or legacy
    PDB format, with optional gzip compression), receive a UUID ticket, and poll GET
    /results for status and output. Enables large-scale structural comparison workflows
    without manual interaction with the RCSB PDB website.
  humanURL: https://alignment.rcsb.org
  baseURL: https://alignment.rcsb.org
  tags:
  - Structure Alignment
  - Structural Comparison
  - Asynchronous
  - Computational
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://alignment.rcsb.org/api-reference.html
  - type: QueryEditor
    url: https://alignment.rcsb.org/query-editor.html
  contact:
  - type: Email
    url: mailto:info@rcsb.org
common:
- type: JSONLd
  url: json-ld/pdb.json
- type: Website
  url: https://www.rcsb.org
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.rcsb.org/docs/programmatic-access/web-apis-overview
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://www.rcsb.org/docs/programmatic-access
- type: FileDownloads
  url: https://files.wwpdb.org
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/rcsb
- type: PythonSDK
  url: https://github.com/rcsb/py-rcsb-api
- type: JavaScriptSDK
  url: https://github.com/rcsb/rcsb-api-tools
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://www.rcsb.org/pages/policies
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/pdb-rate-limits.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/pdb-plans-pricing.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/pdb-finops.yml
- type: Contact
  url: mailto:info@rcsb.org
- type: MailingList
  url: https://groups.google.com/g/rcsb-pdb-api-announcements
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com