Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Acta Crystallogr D Struct Biol. 2021 Mar 1;77(Pt 3):313-324. doi: 10.1107/S2059798320016368. Epub 2021 Feb 17.
Microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) has recently emerged as a promising method for macromolecular structure determination in structural biology. Since the first protein structure was determined in 2013, the method has been evolving rapidly. Several protein structures have been determined and various studies indicate that MicroED is capable of (i) revealing atomic structures with charges, (ii) solving new protein structures by molecular replacement, (iii) visualizing ligand-binding interactions and (iv) determining membrane-protein structures from microcrystals embedded in lipidic mesophases. However, further development and optimization is required to make MicroED experiments more accurate and more accessible to the structural biology community. Here, we provide an overview of the current status of the field, and highlight the ongoing development, to provide an indication of where the field may be going in the coming years. We anticipate that MicroED will become a robust method for macromolecular structure determination, complementing existing methods in structural biology.
微晶电子衍射（MicroED）最近作为一种有前途的方法在结构生物学中用于确定大分子结构而出现。自 2013 年首次确定蛋白质结构以来，该方法一直在迅速发展。已经确定了几个蛋白质结构，并且各种研究表明 MicroED 能够 (i) 揭示带电荷的原子结构，(ii) 通过分子置换解决新的蛋白质结构，(iii) 可视化配体结合相互作用，以及 (iv) 从嵌入脂质中间相的微晶中确定膜蛋白结构。然而，需要进一步的开发和优化，以使 MicroED 实验更准确，并更容易被结构生物学界所接受。在这里，我们提供了该领域的现状概述，并强调了正在进行的发展，以表明该领域在未来几年可能的发展方向。我们预计 MicroED 将成为一种用于确定大分子结构的强大方法，补充结构生物学中现有的方法。
