CryoEM seminar within the ITQB NOVA PhD program MolBIOS - Jaime Romero, CSIC-CNB

Open CryoEM Seminar 

within the ITQB NOVA PhD program MOLBIOS 

Date: 21 Feb 2022

Time: 15:30-16:30

Location: ITQB NOVA auditorium & Webinar

Jaime Martin-Benito Romero

Lab Head of the "Ultrastructure of viruses and molecular aggregates" Group

CSIC-CNB, Madrid, SPAIN



High resolution, or low resolution: Is this really the question?

In recent years electron cryomicroscopy has undergone a real revolution driven by the development of direct electron detectors, the automation of microscopes and a huge development in image processing software. This, which has been termed the "resolution revolution", has made possible to obtain protein structures at quasi-atomic resolution (between 2 and 5 Å) almost routinely, enabling very detailed studies of biological systems. Nevertheless, there are factors such as the extreme flexibility or conformational variability of some macromolecular complexes, which in many cases still prevent achieving high resolution. However, even in these cases, electron microscopy can provide us with information of great value in answering important biological questions. In this seminar we will see two examples of both scenarios, the determination of the structure of a membrane protein at high resolution, and the determination of the transcription mechanism of influenza virus ribonucleoproteins using low resolution studies.

This seminar will be hosted by the IMpaCT project Co-coordinator, Célia Romão, and the consortium ITQB NOVA member, Carlos Frazão.