Recent Advancements in 3‑D Structure Determination of Bacteriophages: from Negative Stain to CryoEM

Abstract

For many years, X-ray crystallography has been exclusively
used by structural biologists for resolving virus structures and viral
proteins at atomic resolution level. However, the discovery of electron
microscopy, especially Cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM), has enabled
us to visualise the detailed structural features of biological macromolecules
in a more accurate way. In recent years, cryoEM has made sudden
progress in its use due to high-end microscopes, improved detectors
and modernised software. It is now possible to get near-atomic resolution
three-dimensional viral maps using cryoEM. Among viruses, the bacterial
viruses or bacteriophages are the most fascinating objects for the
structural biologists as they are highly symmetrical particles. The development
of cryoEM has also made it easy to determine the structures of
these highly symmetrical macromolecules at near-atomic resolution.