Volume 240, 2022

High-throughput cryo-EM structure determination of amyloids

Abstract

The formation of amyloid filaments is characteristic of various degenerative diseases. Recent breakthroughs in electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) have led to atomic structure determination of multiple amyloid filaments, both of filaments assembled in vitro from recombinant proteins, and of filaments extracted from diseased tissue. These observations revealed that a single protein may adopt multiple different amyloid folds, and that in vitro assembly does not necessarily lead to the same filaments as those observed in disease. In order to develop relevant model systems for disease, and ultimately to better understand the molecular mechanisms of disease, it will be important to determine which factors determine the formation of distinct amyloid folds. High-throughput cryo-EM, in which structure determination becomes a tool rather than a project in itself, will facilitate the screening of large numbers of in vitro assembly conditions. To this end, we describe a new filament picking algorithm based on the Topaz approach, and we outline image processing strategies in Relion that enable atomic structure determination of amyloids within days.

Graphical abstract: High-throughput cryo-EM structure determination of amyloids

Associated articles

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Feb 2022
Accepted
08 Mar 2022
First published
14 Mar 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Faraday Discuss., 2022,240, 243-260

High-throughput cryo-EM structure determination of amyloids

S. Lövestam and S. H. W. Scheres, Faraday Discuss., 2022, 240, 243 DOI: 10.1039/D2FD00034B

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