Reducing effects of particle adsorption to the air-water interface in cryo-EM
Alex J Noble1, Hui Wei1, Venkata P Dandey1, Zhening Zhang1, Yong Zi Tan1,2, Clinton S Potter1,2, Bridget Carragher3,4
- National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy, Simons Electron Microscopy Center, New York Structural Biology Center, New York, NY, USA.
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
- National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy, Simons Electron Microscopy Center, New York Structural Biology Center, New York, NY, USA. bcarr@nysbc.org.
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. bcarr@nysbc.org.
Abstract
Most protein particles prepared in vitreous ice for single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) are adsorbed to air-water or substrate-water interfaces, which can cause the particles to adopt preferred orientations. By using a rapid plunge-freezing robot and nanowire grids, we were able to reduce some of the deleterious effects of the air-water interface by decreasing the dwell time of particles in thin liquid films. We demonstrated this by using single-particle cryo-EM and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to examine hemagglutinin, insulin receptor complex, and apoferritin.
Presented By Alex Noble