Developing Graphene Grids for Cryoelectron Microscopy

Overview

Journal Front Mol Biosci

Specialty Biology

Date 2022 Aug 1

PMID 35911962

Authors

Hongcheng Fan

Fei Sun

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) single particle analysis has become one of the major techniques used to study high-resolution 3D structures of biological macromolecules. Specimens are generally prepared in a thin layer of vitrified ice using a holey carbon grid. However, the sample quality using this type of grid is not always ideal for high-resolution imaging even when the specimens in the test tube behave ideally. Various problems occur during a vitrification procedure, including poor/nonuniform distribution of particles, preferred orientation of particles, specimen denaturation/degradation, high background from thick ice, and beam-induced motion, which have become important bottlenecks in high-resolution structural studies using cryo-EM in many projects. In recent years, grids with support films made of graphene and its derivatives have been developed to efficiently solve these problems. Here, the various advantages of graphene grids over conventional holey carbon film grids, functionalization of graphene support films, production methods of graphene grids, and origins of pristine graphene contamination are reviewed and discussed.

Citing Articles

Overcoming the preferred-orientation problem in cryo-EM with self-supervised deep learning.

Liu Y, Fan H, Hu J, Zhou Z Nat Methods. 2024; 22(1):113-123.

PMID: 39558095 DOI: 10.1038/s41592-024-02505-1.

Correction of preferred orientation-induced distortion in cryo-electron microscopy maps.

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Overcoming the preferred orientation problem in cryoEM with self-supervised deep-learning.

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Cryo-electron microscopy-based drug design.

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Fabrication of Monolayer Graphene-Coated Grids for Cryoelectron Microscopy.

Basanta B, Chen W, Pride D, Lander G J Vis Exp. 2023; (199).

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