makeshift

An open-source Python package for accessing and analyzing NMR data from either custom input or NMR-STAR files from the BMRB.

Installation

pip install makeshift-nmr

Quickstart

import makeshift as ms

# Fetch and parse a BMRB entry into tidy chemical shifts
cs = ms.ChemicalShifts.from_bmrb(5363)
cs.data            # one row per shift: Seq_ID, Comp_ID, Atom_ID, Atom_type, Val
cs.sequences()     # one row per entity: ID, polymer type, sequence

# Re-reference shifts
cs = ms.ChemicalShifts.from_bmrb(4527, reref="lacs", calc_csi=True)
cs.reref_offsets   # {atom: offset applied}

# Build an assigned peak list (e.g. for an HSQC)
peaks = cs.peaklist()
peaks.data

Modules

See demos/ for worked examples:

• quick_start.ipynb (core workflow),
• reref.ipynb (re-referencing),
• cpmg_demo.ipynb (the CPMG pipeline),
• bmrb_relaxation_demo.ipynb (deposited relaxation → dynamics profile)
• talosn_demo.ipynb (TALOS-N prediction).

Re-referencing

BMRB shifts are sometimes mis-referenced — a constant offset shifts every peak of a given nucleus. ChemicalShifts.reref corrects this in place using one of two methods:

• PANAV (Wang & Wishart 2005) — uses rarely-misreferenced HA shifts to assign secondary structure, then aligns N/CA/CB to curated per-structure reference distributions (Wang & Jardetzky 2002).
• LACS (Wang & Markley 2009) — fits secondary shift vs. CSI so the random-coil regime intercepts at the origin; covers CA, CB, C′, N, and HN.

cs = ms.ChemicalShifts.from_bmrb(4527)
cs.reref(method="panav")   # or "lacs"
print(cs.reref_offsets)    # {'N': ..., 'CA': ..., 'CB': ..., ...}

Entry 4527 is correctly referenced; entries 6586 and 4150 have been described in the literature as needing re-referencing. The two methods have not yet been extensively compared.

Relaxation and dynamics

NMRStarEntry extracts any deposited relaxation data, and RelaxationProfile turns it into a per-residue dynamics analysis in the style of RelaxDB (Wayment-Steele, El Nesr et al.).

Pull deposited data straight from an entry:

entry = ms.NMRStarEntry.from_bmrb(25013)
entry.datasets()                 # which data types the entry holds
entry.relaxation("T2")           # R2 (also "T1"/"R1", "T1rho", "NOE") — units-aware
entry.order_parameters()         # model-free S2 (S2, Tau_e, Rex)
entry.data_loop("spectral_density_values", "_Spectral_density")  # anything else

RelaxationProfile assembles R1/R2/NOE into the R₂/R₁ observable, compares it to a HYDRONMR rigid-body prediction, and labels each residue by motional regime:

from makeshift.relaxation import RelaxationProfile

prof = RelaxationProfile.from_bmrb(25013)   # pulls T1/T2/NOE, aligns to the sequence
prof.add_rigid_prediction()                 # structure: deposited PDB → RCSB, else AlphaFold → AFDB
print(prof.label())                         # per-residue motion string
prof.plot("R2_R1")

The structure for the rigid prediction can be a local PDB, a PDB id (fetched from RCSB), or a UniProt accession (fetched from AlphaFold DB) — e.g. add_rigid_prediction("1WRP"), ("P0DP23"), or ("model.pdb"); with no argument it uses the entry's own cited PDB or AlphaFold model. makeshift does not predict structure itself.

Label tokens: A ordered, ^ µs–ms exchange (elevated R₂/R₁), v ps–ns motion (hetNOE ≤ 0.65), b both, . peak missing, t disordered terminus, p proline.

TALOS-N: prediction from chemical shifts

makeshift.talosn wraps the NIH TALOS-N binary (Shen & Bax, J. Biomol. NMR 2013), which predicts backbone φ/ψ torsion angles, per-residue S2 order parameters, and secondary structure from assigned backbone chemical shifts using a trained neural network.

The binary and its database aren't bundled — they're downloaded on demand from NIH (under their Terms of Use, which the installer prints) into a data_dir you choose. Keep that path in a variable and pass the same one to install and to each TalosN:

from pathlib import Path
from makeshift import talosn

data_dir = Path.home() / "talosn_data"
talosn.install_talosn_data(data_dir=data_dir)     # one-time, ~ a few hundred MB

tn = talosn.TalosN.from_bmrb(4527, data_dir=data_dir)
tn.run()                    # or run(auto_install=True) to fetch the binary on first use
tn.order_parameters         # predS2.tab — per-residue S2
tn.torsion_angles           # pred.tab   — φ/ψ per residue + confidence class
tn.secondary_structure      # predSS.tab — helix/sheet/coil

data_dir defaults to inside the installed package if omitted (usually not what you want for a few-hundred-MB download).

NMR-STAR concepts

NMR-STAR files are organised around saveframes, each belonging to a category (e.g. assigned_chemical_shifts, entity, sample). The three you interact with most:

• Entry — a single BMRB deposition (one .str file).
• Entity — a distinct molecular species (protein, DNA strand, ligand), each with its own Entity_ID.
• Chemical shift list — the _Atom_chem_shift loop inside an assigned_chemical_shifts saveframe; one row per observed shift.

License

MIT License.

makeshift.talosn downloads and runs the TALOS-N binary, which is distributed separately by NIH under its own Terms of Use (including no redistribution without permission from the authors); those terms govern the downloaded software, not this wrapper.

Acknowledgments

• The Biological Magnetic Resonance Bank (BMRB) for maintaining and sharing NMR data.
• The Bax lab at NIH for TALOS-N.