Marabini Roberto, Carragher Bridget, Chen Shaoxia, Chen James, Cheng Anchi, Downing Kenneth H, Frank Joachim, Grassucci Robert A, Bernard Heymann J, Jiang Wen, Jonic Slavica, Liao Hstau Y, Ludtke Steven J, Patwari Shail, Piotrowski Angela L, Quintana Adrian, Sorzano Carlos O S, Stahlberg Henning, Vargas Javier, Voss Neil R, Chiu Wah, Carazo Jose M
Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.
The National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
J Struct Biol. 2015 Jun;190(3):348-59. doi: 10.1016/j.jsb.2015.04.003. Epub 2015 Apr 23.
Image formation in bright field electron microscopy can be described with the help of the contrast transfer function (CTF). In this work the authors describe the "CTF Estimation Challenge", called by the Madrid Instruct Image Processing Center (I2PC) in collaboration with the National Center for Macromolecular Imaging (NCMI) at Houston. Correcting for the effects of the CTF requires accurate knowledge of the CTF parameters, but these have often been difficult to determine. In this challenge, researchers have had the opportunity to test their ability in estimating some of the key parameters of the electron microscope CTF on a large micrograph data set produced by well-known laboratories on a wide set of experimental conditions. This work presents the first analysis of the results of the CTF Estimation Challenge, including an assessment of the performance of the different software packages under different conditions, so as to identify those areas of research where further developments would be desirable in order to achieve high-resolution structural information.
明场电子显微镜中的图像形成可以借助对比度传递函数（CTF）来描述。在这项工作中，作者描述了由马德里图像分析与处理中心（I2PC）与休斯顿国家大分子成像中心（NCMI）合作发起的“CTF估计挑战赛”。校正CTF的影响需要准确了解CTF参数，但这些参数往往很难确定。在这次挑战赛中，研究人员有机会在由知名实验室在广泛的实验条件下生成的大型显微照片数据集上测试他们估计电子显微镜CTF一些关键参数的能力。这项工作首次分析了CTF估计挑战赛的结果，包括评估不同软件包在不同条件下的性能，以便确定为获得高分辨率结构信息而需要进一步发展的研究领域。
