Hybrid approach by electron and X-ray structural analysis for large macromolecular assemblies towards pseudo-atomic resolution

为了阐明大型生物大分子复合物在各种生物功能下的作用机制，并将其应用于医学和纳米技术，有必要对其原子细节的三维结构进行可视化。电子低温显微镜（cryoEM）和大型配合物的图像分析虽然难以单独实现原子分辨率，但可以结合成分分子的x射线晶体学来建立配合物的伪原子模型。我们改进了冷冻电镜图像分析的分辨率和吞吐量，显著提高了配合物原子模型构建的准确性和效率，从而促进了我们对生物机制的理解。

To elucidate the mechanisms of large biological macromolecular complexes underlying various biological functions and to make use of them in the application for medicine and nanotechnology, it is essential to visualize their 3D structures in atomic detail. Electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM) and image analysis of large complexes, although difficult to achieve atomic resolution by itself, can be combined with X-ray crystallography of component molecules to build pseudo-atomic models of the complexes. We have improved the resolution and throughput of cryoEM image analysis to increase the accuracy and efficiency of atomic model building of the complexes markedly to facilitate our understanding of the biological mechanisms.