In recent years, single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has emerged as a mainstream structural biology technique that can determine the 3D structure of proteins and protein complexes at near-atomic resolution. However, because single particle cryo-EM is limited to highly purified and isolated proteins that are averaged to determine their 3D structure, it lacks a connection to the cellular context. Here, cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) fills the gap by visualizing proteins within their functional cellular environments. This allows the observation of their relationships and interactions with other cellular components and holds great promise for cell biology, where the ultimate goal is to understand every molecule in the cell—its structure, function, location and interactions.
Our Cryo-Electron Tomography Publications E-book is a reference guide to select peer-reviewed publications from various fields of cell biology, neuroscience, microbiology and virology and the latest review articles as published in Cell, Nature and Science.
