单颗粒冷冻电镜技术的研究现状和未来展望

Current Research Status and Future Prospects of Cryo-EM Technology

近年来,软件和硬件的突破性进展使得单颗粒冷冻电子显微镜技术实现了分辨率革命,成为结构生物学研究中最重要的手段之一。该技术不需要结晶,能够保证生物样品处于近生理状态下,并且所需样品量较少。在这篇文章中,我们将回顾单颗粒冷冻电镜技术的发展历程和近期的一些技术更新,并简略讨论该技术今后的发展趋势和应用前景。

Recent breakthroughs in software algorithms and hardware equipment,especially the detector technology,brought single-particle cryo-electron microscopy(cryo-EM)into the“resolution revolution”,enabling it to become one of the most popular and important tools in structural biology.This technique is capable of determining structures of macromolecules at atomic resolution without crystallization,thus maintaining these biological complexes in their close-to-native states.Herein,we review the evolution of cryo-EM in the past 40 years and recent advances,and briefly discuss its potential future perspectives.