PubReading [37] - High resolution single particle cryo-electron microscopy using beam-image shift - A. Cheng, B. Carragher et al.

Automated data acquisition is used widely for single-particle reconstruction of three-dimensional (3D) volumes of biological complexes preserved in vitreous ice and imaged in a transmission electron microscope. Automation has become integral to this method because of the very large number of particle images required in order to overcome the typically low signal-to-noise ratio of these images. For optimal efficiency, automated data acquisition software packages typically employ some beam-image shift targeting as this method is both fast and accurate ( ± 0.1 μm). In contrast, using only stage movement, relocation to a targeted area under low-dose conditions can only be achieved in combination with multiple iterations or long relaxation times, both reducing efficiency. Nevertheless it is well known  ...