Biological samples containing Epigenetics inhibitor mostly light elements give images with low contrast, since the scattering of electrons

is proportional to the atomic number Z. Besides, radiation damage by the electron beam can easily destroy biological samples. Radiation damage cannot be avoided, selleck chemicals but only minimized (i) by cooling the specimen to either liquid nitrogen or liquid helium temperature and (ii) by minimizing the electron dose. The latter results in noisy electron micrographs with hardly visible biological objects. Therefore, image analysis techniques have been developed to improve the signal recorded in the EM pictures. In EM image analysis, improving the signal of an object is performed by averaging. By adding hundreds or, if possible, many thousands of projections, the signal improves substantially and trustworthy electron density maps are obtained. There are two general methods for averaging of 2D projections, depending on the object. One method, electron crystallography, is based on filtering

images of periodic objects, which are usually 2D crystals. The other, single particle averaging, deals with randomly oriented single molecules. Electron crystallography was able to solve some important membrane protein structures, at a time when only a limited number of such structures were solved by X-ray diffraction. Bacteriorhodopsin (Henderson et al. 1990) and Light-harvesting complex II (LHCII) from pea (Kühlbrandt et al. 1994) were the first proteins to be completed, although more recently slightly better 4SC-202 supplier structures have been provided by X-ray diffraction.

Electron crystallography needs well-ordered, large 2D crystals. The preferential size is a few micrometers, and such crystals are not always easy to grow. This is clearly a reason why electron crystallography is not a mainstream technique and also why EM is moving toward single particle analysis. Other advantages of single particle EM versus 2D crystal analysis are the facts that samples of smaller quantities are BCKDHA needed and low purity is possible, at least for determination of 2D projection maps. A good introduction to the technique of 2D crystal analysis can be found in Yeager et al. (1999). Specimen preparation: cryo-EM and classical negative staining Since modern electron microscopes have enough resolving power for structural studies of macromolecules, factors other than instrumental ones are of equal importance. The specimen preparation method is one of these factors, and it strongly determines the ultimate results that can be achieved. In the negative staining technique, the contrast is enhanced by embedding biomolecules in a heavy metal salt solution (see Harris and Horne 1994 for a review). On drying, the metal salt fills cavities and the space around the molecules, but does not penetrate the hydrophobic protein interior. As a result, negatively stained specimens show protein envelopes with good contrast.