2015 年 57 巻 1 号 p. 66-71
Recent advances that improve direct electron detectors have revolutionized structural determination of biological molecules by cryo-electron microscopy. It has brought about the advent of near atomic resolution in single-particle reconstruction even with membrane proteins of 200~400 kDa. In fact, such high-resolution structures have allowed de novo building of atomic models. This rapid progress will change the quality and quantity of the conventional hybrid approach combining cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography or light microscopy, and computational methods such as molecular dynamics will also take on added significance to create integrated models of huge and complex macromolecules.