We are experimenting with different biological materials that are suitable for structural analysis by tomography. At the same time, we are looking for specimens that will serve as good test structures for evaluating different practical and computational approaches to tomographic reconstruction. Our greatest experience so far is with the Golgi apparatus in cultured rat cells (see collaboration with Kathryn Howell). We have also experimented with fixed, embedded insect flight muscle as a specimen with which to evaluate different algorithms for tomographic reconstruction. This work has demonstrated the importance of including tilts around two orthogonal axes to improve the isotrophy of both resolution and contrast. Since this implies as many as 240 images for a single tomogram, we have also investigated algorithms for sampling 3-dimensional Fourier space more efficiently. Mastronarde has shown that tilt increments defined by a cosine function provide a significant reduction in microscopy time and provide good isotropic resolution. These methods have now been applied to thick sections of anaphase chromosomes from PTK cells, and the methods used to reconstruct the interaction between microtubules, kinetochores, and centrosomes. Several unexpected features of the geometry of microtubule ends have been identified, thanks to the quality of the 3-dimensional images now available.
Giddings Jr, Thomas H; Morphew, Mary K; McIntosh, J Richard (2017) Preparing Fission Yeast for Electron Microscopy. Cold Spring Harb Protoc 2017: |
Zhao, Xiaowei; Schwartz, Cindi L; Pierson, Jason et al. (2017) Three-Dimensional Structure of the Ultraoligotrophic Marine Bacterium ""Candidatus Pelagibacter ubique"". Appl Environ Microbiol 83: |
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Höög, Johanna L; Lacomble, Sylvain; Bouchet-Marquis, Cedric et al. (2016) 3D Architecture of the Trypanosoma brucei Flagella Connector, a Mobile Transmembrane Junction. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 10:e0004312 |
Park, J Genevieve; Palmer, Amy E (2015) Properties and use of genetically encoded FRET sensors for cytosolic and organellar Ca2+ measurements. Cold Spring Harb Protoc 2015:pdb.top066043 |
McCoy, Kelsey M; Tubman, Emily S; Claas, Allison et al. (2015) Physical limits on kinesin-5-mediated chromosome congression in the smallest mitotic spindles. Mol Biol Cell 26:3999-4014 |
Höög, Johanna L; Lötvall, Jan (2015) Diversity of extracellular vesicles in human ejaculates revealed by cryo-electron microscopy. J Extracell Vesicles 4:28680 |
Marc, Robert E; Anderson, James R; Jones, Bryan W et al. (2014) The AII amacrine cell connectome: a dense network hub. Front Neural Circuits 8:104 |
Weber, Britta; Tranfield, Erin M; Höög, Johanna L et al. (2014) Automated stitching of microtubule centerlines across serial electron tomograms. PLoS One 9:e113222 |
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