Qiu-Xing Jiang
University of Florida, USA
Title: ChemiC: Chemically functionalized nanometer-thick carbon films for cryoEM studies of biological complexes
Biography
Biography: Qiu-Xing Jiang
Abstract
With recent successful development of maximum-likelihood based refinement algorithms, direct electron detectors and motion correction, phase plates, energy filters and automatic data collection and particle selection, preparation of good cryoEM specimens and reliable analysis of conformational and/or compositional heterogeneity in the images of single molecular complexes are becoming the rate-limiting steps in cryoEM studies of biological specimens. ChemiC was developed in my laboratory to facilitate selective enrichment of nanogram amounts of biological complexes to the surfaces of chemically functionalized carbon-films, which, compared to the conventional, physically-treated carbon films, has multiple advantages. It allows affinity-based selection without introducing a significant amount of biomass, retains all attached molecules in a thin layer of vitrified ice that is less than 40 nm thick and has much less ice-scattering noise than conventional 100-150 nm thick ice layers, and enables controlled assembly of specific biological processes or synchronization of biological complexes in a targeted conformational state. This new method has been used for different projects. I will discuss the ChemiC technology and its applications in cryoEM specimen preparation and imaging and will present the recent progress in further development of the technology for different purposes.
