Development of a Facility for Image Analysis of Helical Polymers

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The principal investigator proposes to develop a workstation, operating software, and methods that will allow researchers to analyze both the structure and dynamics of disordered helical polymers. The facility will enable electron micrographs to be rapidly digitized and stored in a computer so that the images may be processed at near real-time speeds, with all processing interactive via a raster graphic display. The software being developed will allow for rapid analysis of hundreds of images. Assemblage of large statistical data bases of images, and their associated parameters will allow for the averaging of subsets of images. Dynamical models of these protein polymers can then be generated from the different conformations. The disorder, which is presently an obstacle to structure determination, will be exploited to reveal how these molecules flucturate both randomly and as part of enzymatic cycles. The study of biological structures should be one of the major beneficiaries of this technology.