Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomograms

Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) combined with sub-tomogram averaging (STA) allows the determination of protein structures imaged within the native context of the cell at near-atomic resolution. Particle picking is an essential step in the cryo-ET/STA image analysis pipeline that consists in locat...

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Main Authors: Weisheng Jin, Ye Zhou, Alberto Bartesaghi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2024-12-01
Series:Journal of Structural Biology: X
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590152424000096
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author Weisheng Jin
Ye Zhou
Alberto Bartesaghi
author_facet Weisheng Jin
Ye Zhou
Alberto Bartesaghi
author_sort Weisheng Jin
collection DOAJ
description Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) combined with sub-tomogram averaging (STA) allows the determination of protein structures imaged within the native context of the cell at near-atomic resolution. Particle picking is an essential step in the cryo-ET/STA image analysis pipeline that consists in locating the position of proteins within crowded cellular tomograms so that they can be aligned and averaged in 3D to improve resolution. While extensive work in 2D particle picking has been done in the context of single-particle cryo-EM, comparatively fewer strategies have been proposed to pick particles from 3D tomograms, in part due to the challenges associated with working with noisy 3D volumes affected by the missing wedge. While strategies based on 3D template-matching and deep learning are commonly used, these methods are computationally expensive and require either an external template or manual labelling which can bias the results and limit their applicability. Here, we propose a size-based method to pick particles from tomograms that is fast, accurate, and does not require external templates or user provided labels. We compare the performance of our approach against a commonly used algorithm based on deep learning, crYOLO, and show that our method: i) has higher detection accuracy, ii) does not require user input for labeling or time-consuming training, and iii) runs efficiently on non-specialized CPU hardware. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by automatically detecting particles from tomograms representing different types of samples and using these particles to determine the high-resolution structures of ribosomes imaged in vitro and in situ.
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spelling doaj-art-b5992e91f9a94cd3a5343d71fcce38c32024-12-12T05:22:34ZengElsevierJournal of Structural Biology: X2590-15242024-12-0110100104Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomogramsWeisheng Jin0Ye Zhou1Alberto Bartesaghi2Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, USADepartment of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, USADepartment of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, USA; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, Durham, USA; Corresponding author.Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) combined with sub-tomogram averaging (STA) allows the determination of protein structures imaged within the native context of the cell at near-atomic resolution. Particle picking is an essential step in the cryo-ET/STA image analysis pipeline that consists in locating the position of proteins within crowded cellular tomograms so that they can be aligned and averaged in 3D to improve resolution. While extensive work in 2D particle picking has been done in the context of single-particle cryo-EM, comparatively fewer strategies have been proposed to pick particles from 3D tomograms, in part due to the challenges associated with working with noisy 3D volumes affected by the missing wedge. While strategies based on 3D template-matching and deep learning are commonly used, these methods are computationally expensive and require either an external template or manual labelling which can bias the results and limit their applicability. Here, we propose a size-based method to pick particles from tomograms that is fast, accurate, and does not require external templates or user provided labels. We compare the performance of our approach against a commonly used algorithm based on deep learning, crYOLO, and show that our method: i) has higher detection accuracy, ii) does not require user input for labeling or time-consuming training, and iii) runs efficiently on non-specialized CPU hardware. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by automatically detecting particles from tomograms representing different types of samples and using these particles to determine the high-resolution structures of ribosomes imaged in vitro and in situ.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590152424000096Cryo-electron tomography3D particle pickingSize-based object detectionSub-tomogram averaging
spellingShingle Weisheng Jin
Ye Zhou
Alberto Bartesaghi
Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomograms
Journal of Structural Biology: X
Cryo-electron tomography
3D particle picking
Size-based object detection
Sub-tomogram averaging
title Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomograms
title_full Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomograms
title_fullStr Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomograms
title_full_unstemmed Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomograms
title_short Accurate size-based protein localization from cryo-ET tomograms
title_sort accurate size based protein localization from cryo et tomograms
topic Cryo-electron tomography
3D particle picking
Size-based object detection
Sub-tomogram averaging
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590152424000096
work_keys_str_mv AT weishengjin accuratesizebasedproteinlocalizationfromcryoettomograms
AT yezhou accuratesizebasedproteinlocalizationfromcryoettomograms
AT albertobartesaghi accuratesizebasedproteinlocalizationfromcryoettomograms