Recent advances and current trends in cryo-electron microscopy.

Curr Opin Struct Biol

University of California, Santa Cruz, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Santa Cruz, CA, USA. Electronic address:

Published: December 2022

All steps of cryogenic electron-microscopy (cryo-EM) workflows have rapidly evolved over the last decade. Advances in both single-particle analysis (SPA) cryo-EM and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) have facilitated the determination of high-resolution biomolecular structures that are not tractable with other methods. However, challenges remain. For SPA, these include improved resolution in an additional dimension: time. For cryo-ET, these include accessing difficult-to-image areas of a cell and finding rare molecules. Finally, there is a need for automated and faster workflows, as many projects are limited by throughput. Here, we review current developments in SPA cryo-EM and cryo-ET that push these boundaries. Collectively, these advances are poised to propel our spatial and temporal understanding of macromolecular processes.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10266358PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbi.2022.102484DOI Listing

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