@article {49180, title = {Analysis of global and site-specific radiation damage in cryo-EM.}, journal = {Structure (London, England : 1993)}, volume = {26}, year = {2018}, month = {2018 Apr 18}, pages = {759-66}, abstract = {

Micro-crystal electron diffraction (MicroED) combines the efficiency of electron scattering with diffraction to allow structure determination from nano-sized crystalline samples in cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM). It has been used to solve structures of a diverse set of biomolecules and materials, in some cases to sub-atomic resolution. However, little is known about the damaging effects of the electron beam on samples during such measurements. We assess global and site-specific damage from electron radiation on nanocrystals of proteinase K and of a prion hepta-peptide and find that the dynamics of electron-induced damage follow well-established trends observed in X-ray crystallography. Metal ions are perturbed, disulfide bonds are broken, and acidic side chains are decarboxylated while the\ diffracted intensities decay exponentially with increasing exposure. A better understanding of radiation damage in MicroED improves our assessment and processing of all types of cryo-EM data.

}, issn = {1878-4186}, doi = {10.1016/j.str.2018.03.021}, author = {Hattne, Johan and Shi, Dan and Glynn, Calina and Zee, Chih-Te and Gallagher-Jones, Marcus and Martynowycz, Michael W and Rodriguez, Jose A and Gonen, Tamir} }