“Structure Verification in Cryo-EM: Unexpected Lessons”

“Structure Verification in Cryo-EM: Unexpected Lessons”

Niko Grigorieff – Professor of Biochemistry, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Despite significant progress in single-particle cryo-EM towards obtaining reconstructions at near-atomic resolution, it remains difficult to assess resolution, let alone verify that the overall reconstruction is actually correct. I will talk about a set of experiments using the tilt test that was recently proposed by Rosenthal & Henderson (2003). The experiments were designed to determine the accuracy with which single particle orientations can be determined. However, they also yielded a number of unexpected results that will be useful to practitioners of single particle cryo-EM.