Macromolecular and Cellular Electron Microscopy

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor and tutor: Professor Helen Saibil/Professor Elena Orlova
• Assessment: a 1.5-hour examination (66%) and coursework (34%)

Macromolecular and cellular electron microscopy is now a key approach in structural and cellular biology. This course will explain the principles and practice of structure determination of biological machinery by electron microscopy, both in vitro as well as in the in vivo, cellular context.

Indicative module syllabus

• Basics of EM imaging and sample preparation
• Principles of TEM image formation and detection
• Image processing in two dimensions; signal to noise ratio, alignment and classification
• Single particle analysis
• Electron tomography and sub-tomogram averaging
• Map validation, interpretation, atomic structure fitting

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• explain the principles of electron microscopy as applied to biological material
• describe the requirements for both molecular and cellular sample preparation for EM
• explain the basics of image processing, the relationship between imaging and diffraction and the principles of three dimensional reconstruction from projection images by single particle analysis and by tomography
• give examples of the application of EM in structural biology
• evaluate the quality of EM maps and atomic structure fitting.