Acta Crystallogr F Struct Biol Commun. 2024 Nov 01. 80(Pt 11): 320-327
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) is a rapidly growing structural biology modality that has been successful in revealing molecular details of biological systems. However, unlike established biophysical and analytical techniques with calibration standards, cryoEM has lacked comprehensive biological test samples. Here, a cryoEM calibration sample consisting of a mixture of compatible macromolecules is introduced that can not only be used for resolution optimization, but also provides multiple reference points for evaluating instrument performance, data quality and image-processing workflows in a single experiment. This combined test specimen provides researchers with a reference point for validating their cryoEM pipeline, benchmarking their methodologies and testing new algorithms.
Keywords: 3D reconstruction and image processing; benchmarking; calibration; cryo-electron microscopy; education; resolution; single-particle analysis; single-particle cryoEM; structure determination; training; workflow standard