ResiRuler: A Toolkit for Visualizing Residue-Residue Distances and Structural Changes in Biomolecular Models
Proteins and their associated complexes often adopt multiple conformations, with the transitions between these states playing a critical role in biological function. However, the resulting structural heterogeneity can be challenging to visualize and communicate, often requiring manual inspection and time-consuming annotation of biomolecular structures. To address this, we developed ResiRuler, a local, browser-based tool that uses inter-residue distance measurements to quickly quantify atomic displacements and map changes in internal geometry across ensembles of related protein structures. By converting structural differences into residue-pair distance changes, ResiRuler enables rapid identification of regions undergoing coordinated motion, local rearrangement, or large-scale conformational change. The resulting visualizations can be exported as scripts for PyMOL and ChimeraX, allowing users to explore conformational differences and generate publication-quality molecular figures in their preferred visualization environment. Using atomic models in Macromolecular Crystallographic Information File (mmCIF) file format, ResiRuler aligns multiple structures and measures structural variation across models facilitating visualization and presentation of these differences. This allows for rapid visualization of which regions of proteins change among ensembles of structures. The program is available for download at https://github.com/tbaker67/ResiRuler on macOS and Linux operating systems.