2022 Volume 57 Issue 3 Pages 101-107
The three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules and their complexes is the fundamental information not only for life sciences but also for medical sciences and drug design. Electron cryomicroscopy has become an extremely powerful tool for high-resolution structural analysis of biological macromolecules, not any more supplementary to X-ray crystallography and NMR that have been used as the basic technique in structural biology. By the development of hardware and software, such as transmission electron cryomicroscopes with highly stable and controllable electron optics, cold field emission gun and energy filter, CMOS-based direct electron detectors with high frame rate and high sensitivity, high-speed computers and software programs for image analysis, electron cryomicroscopy now allows atomic-resolution structure determination of biological macromolecules within a few days even from a drop of solution sample with an amount as small as a few μg. How can the structures of macromolecules be imaged and analyzed at atomic level resolution in their native states despite their high sensitivity to radiation damage? We describe recent advances and future prospect of electron cryomicroscopy for structural life sciences.
