Nogales Eva
Molecular and Cell Biology Department and QB3 Institute, UC Berkeley, California, 94720.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UC Berkeley, California, 94720.
Protein Sci. 2015 Dec;24(12):1912-9. doi: 10.1002/pro.2808. Epub 2015 Oct 11.
Structural characterization of microtubules has been the realm of three-dimensional electron microscopy and thus has evolved hand in hand with the progress of this technique, from the initial 3D reconstructions of stained tubulin assemblies, and the first atomic model of tubulin by electron crystallography of 2D sheets of protofilaments, to the ever more detailed cryoelectron microscopy structures of frozen-hydrated microtubules. Most recently, hybrid helical and single particle image processing techniques, and the latest detector technology, have lead to atomic models built directly into the density maps of microtubules in different functional states, shading new light into the critical process of microtubule dynamic instability.
微管的结构表征一直属于三维电子显微镜的研究范畴，因此它是随着这项技术的进步而共同发展的，从最初对染色微管蛋白组装体的三维重建，到通过原纤维二维片层的电子晶体学获得的微管蛋白首个原子模型，再到对冷冻水合微管的越来越详细的冷冻电子显微镜结构。最近，混合螺旋和单颗粒图像处理技术以及最新的探测器技术，已促成直接在不同功能状态微管的密度图中构建原子模型，为微管动态不稳定性这一关键过程带来了新的启示。
