Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a powerful structure determination technique that is well-suited to the study of protein and polymer self-assembly in solution. In contrast to conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) sample preparation, which often times involves drying and staining, the frozen-hydrated sample preparation allows the specimens to be kept and imaged in a state closest to their native one. Here, we give a short overview of the basic principles of Cryo-EM and review our results on applying it to the study of different protein and polymer self-assembled nanostructures. More specifically, we show how we have applied cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to visualize the internal morphology of self-assembled poly(ionic liquid) nanoparticles and cryo-EM single particle analysis (SPA) to determine the three-dimensional (3D) structures of artificial protein microtubules. Grapical abstract

中文翻译：

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用于研究自组装聚（离子液体）纳米颗粒和蛋白质超分子结构的低温电子显微镜

冷冻电子显微镜 (cryo-EM) 是一种强大的结构测定技术，非常适合研究溶液中的蛋白质和聚合物自组装。与传统的透射电子显微镜 (TEM) 样品制备（通常涉及干燥和染色）不同，冷冻水合样品制备允许样品以最接近其原始状态的状态保存和成像。在这里，我们简要概述了 Cryo-EM 的基本原理，并回顾了我们将其应用于不同蛋白质和聚合物自组装纳米结构研究的结果。进一步来说，我们展示了我们如何应用冷冻电子断层扫描 (cryo-ET) 来可视化自组装聚（离子液体）纳米粒子的内部形态和冷冻电镜单粒子分析 (SPA) 以确定三维 (3D) 结构人工蛋白质微管。图形摘要