Heterogeneity in Cryo-Electron Microscopy

The field of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has become a leading method for solving high-resolution structures of biomolecules in solution.

The method of transmission electron microscopy used to obtain these structures involves imaging molecules in a thin layer of amorphous vitreous ice by shooting electrons at them and recording excitation events on the other side. The 3D molecule can then be reconstructed from the resulting 2D images (usually hundreds of thousands to millions of them) once the angle of the molecules during imaging can be estimated.