Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 13, 2026

Do's and Don'ts of Cryo-electron Microscopy: A Primer on Sample Preparation and High Quality Data Collection for Macromolecular 3D Reconstruction
Published on: January 9, 2015
Macromolecular structure determination by electron microscopy: new advances and recent results
M H Stowell1, A Miyazawa, N Unwin
1MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK.
Abstract:
Electron microscopy is undergoing a mini-renaissance, as a number of biological systems are yielding to higher resolution analysis as a result of advances in instrumentation, specimen preparation and image-processing technology. The atomic structure of tubulin has now been solved, crucial elements of secondary structure have recently been revealed in several membrane proteins (rhodopsin, gap junctions, aquaporin, and Ca2+ and H+ ATPases) and in a virus particle, and macromolecular complexes are being seen in increasingly fine detail. This growth has been enhanced further by the ability to combine structures of macromolecular complexes derived by electron microscopy with X-ray structures of their components, in order to reconstruct molecular machines and large multiprotein complexes in immense detail.
Related Concept Videos
Studying the Cytoskeleton
Super-resolution Fluorescence Microscopy
Overview of Electron Microscopy
Transmission Electron Microscopy
Cryo-electron Microscopy
Electron Microscope Tomography and Single-particle Reconstruction
Electron Tomography
Electron tomography can be performed either in TEM or STEM (scanning transmission...

