Recent advances in infectious disease research using cryo-electron tomography

Daniel Asarnow; Vada A Becker; Daija Bobe; Charlie Dubbledam; Jake D Johnston; Mykhailo Kopylov; Nathalie R Lavoie; Qiuye Li; Jacob M Mattingly; Joshua H Mendez; Mohammadreza Paraan; Jack Turner; Viraj Upadhye; Richard M Walsh Jr; Meghna Gupta; Edward T Eng

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2023.1296941

Recent advances in infectious disease research using cryo-electron tomography

Front Mol Biosci. 2024 Jan 15:10:1296941. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2023.1296941. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Daniel Asarnow^#¹, Vada A Becker^#², Daija Bobe^#³, Charlie Dubbledam^#³, Jake D Johnston^#^{3

4}, Mykhailo Kopylov^#³, Nathalie R Lavoie^#⁵, Qiuye Li^#⁶, Jacob M Mattingly^#⁷, Joshua H Mendez^#³, Mohammadreza Paraan^#³, Jack Turner^#⁸, Viraj Upadhye^#⁹, Richard M Walsh Jr^#¹⁰, Meghna Gupta¹¹, Edward T Eng³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
² Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
³ Simons Electron Microscopy Center, New York Structural Biology Center, New York, NY, United States.
⁴ Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States.
⁵ Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, School of Medicine, Tufts University, Boston, MA, United States.
⁶ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States.
⁸ European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, United Kingdom.
⁹ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States.
¹⁰ Harvard Cryo-Electron Microscopy Center for Structural Biology and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
¹¹ Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

With the increasing spread of infectious diseases worldwide, there is an urgent need for novel strategies to combat them. Cryogenic sample electron microscopy (cryo-EM) techniques, particularly electron tomography (cryo-ET), have revolutionized the field of infectious disease research by enabling multiscale observation of biological structures in a near-native state. This review highlights the recent advances in infectious disease research using cryo-ET and discusses the potential of this structural biology technique to help discover mechanisms of infection in native environments and guiding in the right direction for future drug discovery.

Keywords: bacteria; cryo-EM; cryo-ET; host-pathogen interaction; infectious diseases; pathogen; viruses.

Publication types

Review

Abstract

Publication types

Grants and funding