Transition to Extended IDs and the PDB Beta Archive
On July 21, 2027, the wwPDB will fully transition to extended 12-character PDB IDs, the PDBX/mmCIF format, and the re-organized PDB archive. At this point, new 4-character IDs will no longer be issued.
PDB Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) can be used to link to the corresponding wwPDB DOI landing page. DOIs are unique, persistent alphanumeric strings assigned to digital objects to provide a permanent, reliable link to their location online. DOIs will not change once assigned.
PDB IDs and DOIs for Structures Deposited Before July 21, 2027
PDB entries that have been issued 4-character PDB IDs, including IHM structures in PDB-IHM, will be accessed in this re-organized archive using their extended PDB ID that prepends "pdb_0000" to the 4-character ID (e.g., 1ABC becomes pdb_00001abc).
For these entries, the PDB DOI format with the "pdb" prefix remains unchanged, e.g., 10.2210/pdb1abc/pdb.
For example, the PDB entry with ID 8y9m (and extended PDB ID pdb_00008y9m) has the DOI https://doi.org/10.2210/pdb8y9m/pdb.
PDB IDs and DOIs for Structures Deposited After July 20, 2027
OneDep will only issue 12-character IDs (prefix pdb_ followed by 8 alphanumeric characters, e.g., pdb_1000axyz) starting July 21, 2027.
These data will only be released in PDBx/mmCIF and PDBML formats. Legacy PDB formatted files will not be generated for these entries.
These entries will have a different PDB DOI format based on the extended PDB ID, e.g. 10.2210/pdb_1000axyz/pdb.
New Directory Structure Supporting Extended PDB IDs
Starting July 21, 2027, the PDB Beta Archive will replace the current PDB main archive. The current beta archive URL will point to the main archive.
The PDB Beta Archive is designed to be scalable and extensible. All files in this archive are re-organized using extended PDB IDs (including file naming and directories).
All PDB users, including software developers and journal editors, must transition to this new archive directory structure, PDBx/mmCIF and extended PDB ID format. Start using extended IDs and PDBx/mmCIF data files today.