A 9 Å single particle reconstruction from CCD captured images on a 200 kV electron cryomicroscope

Abstract

Sub-nanometer resolution structure determination is becoming a common practice in electron cryomicroscopy of macromolecular assemblies. The data for these studies have until now been collected on photographic film. Using cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus (CPV), a previously determined structure, as a test specimen, we show the feasibility of obtaining a 9 Å structure from images acquired from a 4 k × 4 k Gatan CCD on a 200 kV electron cryomicroscope. The match of the α-helices in the protein components of the CPV with the previous structure of the same virus validates the suitability of this type of camera as the recording media targeted for single particle reconstructions at sub-nanometer resolution.