The National Cryo-EM Facility at Frederick National Laboratory: Operational Procedures, Methods and Outputs.

The National Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility (NCEF) at the National Cancer Institute was launched in May of 2017 to provide free and rapid access to high resolution cryo-EM data collection to United States researchers working on problems of broad general relevance to cancer biology. The decision about suitability of projects for data collection is made on a first-come, first-served basis by NCEF staff, and is based solely on the quality of the screening images provided without need for a scientific proposal. Here, we provide an overview of the operation of the facility, typical data collection procedures and some insights that have emerged from the structures reported from data collected at the facility.

Self-Competitive Inhibition of the Bacteriophage P22 Tailspike Endorhamnosidase by O-Antigen Oligosaccharides.

The P22 tailspike endorhamnosidase confers the high specificity of bacteriophage P22 for some serogroups of differing only slightly in their O-antigen polysaccharide. We used several biophysical methods to study the binding and hydrolysis of O-antigen fragments of different lengths by P22 tailspike protein. O-Antigen saccharides of defined length labeled with fluorophors could be purified with higher resolution than previously possible.

Autophosphorylation-induced self-assembly and STIL-dependent reinforcement underlie Plk4's ring-to-dot localization conversion around a human centriole.

Polo-like kinase 4 (Plk4) is a key regulator of centriole biogenesis. Studies have shown that Plk4 undergoes dynamic relocalization from a ring-like pattern around a centriole to a dot-like morphology at the procentriole assembly site and this event is central for inducing centriole biogenesis. However, the detailed mechanisms underlying Plk4's capacity to drive its symmetry-breaking ring-to-dot relocalization remain largely unknown.

A virus-like particle vaccine prevents equine encephalitis virus infection in nonhuman primates.

Western, Eastern, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis viruses (WEEV, EEEV, and VEEV, respectively) are important mosquito-borne agents that pose public health and bioterrorism threats. Despite considerable advances in understanding alphavirus replication, there are currently no available effective vaccines or antiviral treatments against these highly lethal pathogens. To develop a potential countermeasure for viral encephalitis, we generated a trivalent, or three-component, EEV vaccine composed of virus-like particles (VLPs).

Author Correction: Mosaic nanoparticle display of diverse influenza virus hemagglutinins elicits broad B cell responses.

In the version of this article initially published, the labels (50 Å) above the scale bars in Fig. 1b were incorrect. The correct size is 50 nm.