Cryo–electron microscopy breaks the atomic resolution barrier at last

Cryo–electron microscopy breaks the atomic resolution barrier at last

3 years ago
Anonymous $RGO3jP_V_c

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/cryo-electron-microscopy-breaks-atomic-resolution-barrier-last

Cryo–electron microscopy reveals the atomic details of apoferritin, a hollow, spherically shaped protein complex that stores iron.

If you want to map the tiniest parts of a protein, you only have a few options: You can coax millions of individual protein molecules to align into crystals and analyze them using x-ray crystallography. Or you can flash-freeze copies of the protein and bombard them with electrons, a lower resolution method called cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Now, for the first time, scientists have sharpened cryo-EM’s resolution to the atomic level, allowing them to pinpoint the positions of individual atoms in a variety of proteins at a resolution that rivals x-ray crystallography’s.