The structures and dynamics of large biological complexes can be determined using a variety of experimental techniques, each provides information at different resolution. X-ray crystallography has been providing a large amount of structural information at detailed atomic levels. With recent progress in experimental techniques, Cryo Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) may be used to obtain 3D structural models near atomic-resolution. In addition, raw data from cryo-EM may now comprise millions of two-dimensional (2D) images of single molecules, which may represent distinct conformations of the molecule.  Therefore, dynamics information could also be extracted from the 2D data. X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) is another exciting new technology that could significantly extend our structural knowledge of biological systems. Strong laser light from XFEL enables the measurement of single molecular complexes, without necessity of crystallization. However, for biological systems, due to their low diffraction power, signal to noise ratio is extremely low and interpretation of the data remains challenging. <br/><br/>Given progresses in experimental techniques such as Cryo-EM and XFEL, new computational methods are also now needed to process and interpret data (millions of 2D images) obtained from these single particle experiments. We will discuss the development of hybrid computational methods that combine molecular mechanics and image data processing algorithms to derive structural and dynamical information from cryo-EM and XFEL data.

Hybrid approaches to reveal structure and dynamics of large biological complexes from single molecule experiments.

2019 Spring National Meeting

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