Seminar

Fundamentals of cryo-electron tomography and its contribution to biology

Sergio Marco

Electron tomography is a method to compute volumes from projection images obtained at different angles on an electron microscope. Combined with sample preparation methods at the liquid nitrogen temperature (cryo-microscopy), which preserve the biological material, it allows the study of the 3D organization of non symmetrical structures such as cellular organelles or enveloped viruses at nanometric resolution. Obtaining 3D structures of biological structures at nanometric resolution, inaccessible by other structural methods, the advantages of cryo-microscopy and the fundamentals of tomographic reconstruction algorithms will be presented by means of different biological examples focused on enveloped virus and in procentriole morphogenesis.