冷冻电镜在分子生物物理学中的技术革命

Cryo-electron microscopy revolutionizes molecular biophysics

冷冻电镜已经成为了一项应用越来越广泛的生物物理学技术。特别是近些年来,由于最新的信号探测器的应用,以及单颗粒三维重建算法的革新和不断改进,冷冻电镜技术取得了飞跃式的发展。通过该技术解析得到的生物大分子结构可以在单分子条件下达到近原子分辨率(<4?)水平。随着越来越多具有重要生物医学功能的蛋白质及其复合体的高分辨结构被解析出来,冷冻电镜技术正在逐渐引发一场结构生物学革命,并引起全世界的关注。在该文中,作者重点介绍了冷冻电镜及单颗粒分析技术的发展历程,并以炎症复合体和剪接体为例,介绍一些最新的研究进展。

Cryo-electron microscopy（cryo-EM） has become a widely used technology in biophysics. In recent years, with the application of the direct electron detector device camera and continuous innovations in the single-particle reconstruction algorithms, cryo-EM has made tremendous progress. Macromolecular structures can now be determined with near atomic resolution（4 ？）with this technique. As more and more proteins and complexes with important biomedical implications are being revealed with high-resolution, structural biology is undergoing a gradual revolution.Cryo-EM is attracting worldwide attention. In this article we describe its development and singleparticle analysis techniques, taking the inflammasome complex and splicesome as examples to demonstrate the latest advances.