Viruses are macromolecular machineries that hijack cellular metabolism for replication. Enveloped viruses comprise a large variety of RNA and DNA viruses, many of which are notorious human or animal pathogens. Despite their importance, the presence of lipid bilayers in their assembly has made most enveloped viruses too pleomorphic to be reconstructed as a whole by traditional structural biology methods. Furthermore, structural biology of the viral lifecycle was hindered by the sample thickness. Here, I review the recent advances in the applications of cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) on enveloped viral structures and intracellular viral activities.

病毒是劫持细胞代谢进行复制的大分子机器。包膜病毒包括种类繁多的 RNA 和 DNA 病毒，其中许多是臭名昭著的人类或动物病原体。尽管它们很重要，但在它们的组装中存在脂质双层使得大多数包膜病毒过于多形而无法通过传统的结构生物学方法作为一个整体进行重建。此外，样本厚度阻碍了病毒生命周期的结构生物学。在这里，我回顾了冷冻电子断层扫描 (cryo-ET) 在包膜病毒结构和细胞内病毒活性方面的应用的最新进展。