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Microcrystal Electron Diffraction
Microcrystal electron diffraction, or MicroED, is a CryoEM method that was developed by the Gonen laboratory in late 2013 at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. MicroED is a form of electron crystallography where thin 3D crystals are used for structure determination by electron diffraction. Prior to this demonstration, macromolecular (protein) electron crystallography was mainly used on 2D crystals, for example. The method is one of several modern versions of approaches to determine atomic structures using electron diffraction first demonstrated for the positions of hydrogen atoms in NH4Cl crystals by W. E. Laschkarew and I. D. Usykin in 1933, which has since been used for surfaces, via precession electron diffraction, with much of the early work described in the work of Boris Vainshtein and Douglas L. Dorset. The method was developed for structure determination of proteins from nanocrystals that are typically not suitable for X-ray diffraction be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Cryogenic Electron Microscopy
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a transmission electron microscopy technique applied to samples cooled to cryogenic temperatures. For biological specimens, the structure is preserved by embedding in an environment of vitreous ice. An aqueous sample solution is applied to a grid-mesh and plunge-frozen in liquid ethane or a mixture of liquid ethane and propane. While development of the technique began in the 1970s, recent advances in detector technology and software algorithms have allowed for the determination of biomolecular structures at near-atomic resolution. This has attracted wide attention to the approach as an alternative to X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy in the structural biology field. In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson "for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution." '' Nature Methods'' also named cryo- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Transmission Electron Microscopy
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a grid. An image is formed from the interaction of the electrons with the sample as the beam is transmitted through the specimen. The image is then magnified and focused onto an imaging device, such as a fluorescent screen, a layer of photographic film, or a detector such as a scintillator attached to a charge-coupled device or a direct electron detector. Transmission electron microscopes are capable of imaging at a significantly higher resolution than light microscopes, owing to the smaller de Broglie wavelength of electrons. This enables the instrument to capture fine detail—even as small as a single column of atoms, which is thousands of times smaller than a resolvable object seen in a light microscope. Transmission electron micr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Alpha-synuclein
Alpha-synuclein (aSyn) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''SNCA'' gene. It is a neuronal protein involved in the regulation of synaptic vesicle trafficking and the release of neurotransmitters. Alpha-synuclein is abundant in the brain, with smaller amounts present in the heart, muscles, and other tissues. Within the brain, it is primarily localized to the axon terminals of presynaptic neurons. There, it interacts with phospholipids and other proteins. Presynaptic terminals release neurotransmitters from specialized compartments called synaptic vesicles, a process essential for neuronal communication and normal brain function. In Parkinson's disease and related synucleinopathies, abnormal, insoluble forms of alpha-synuclein accumulate within neurons as inclusion bodies, inclusions known as Lewy body, Lewy bodies. Mutations in the ''SNCA'' gene are linked to familial forms of Parkinson's disease. During the process of seeded nucleation, alpha-synuclein adopts a cross-be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Goniometer
A goniometer is an instrument that either measures an angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position. The term goniometry derives from two Greek words, γωνία (''gōnía'') 'angle' and μέτρον (''métron'') ' measure'. The protractor is a commonly used type in the fields of mechanics, engineering, and geometry. The first known description of a goniometer, based on the astrolabe, was by Gemma Frisius in 1538. Protractor A protractor is a measuring instrument, typically made of transparent plastic, for measuring angles. Some protractors are simple half-discs or full circles. More advanced protractors, such as the bevel protractor, have one or two swinging arms, which can be used to help measure the angle. Most protractors measure angles in degrees (°). Radian-scale protractors measure angles in radians. Most protractors are divided into 180 equal parts. Some precision protractors further divide degrees into arcminutes. A protractor divided ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type semiconductor, p-type and n-type semiconductor, n-type MOSFETs for logic functions. CMOS technology is used for constructing integrated circuit (IC) chips, including microprocessors, microcontrollers, memory chips (including Nonvolatile BIOS memory, CMOS BIOS), and other digital logic circuits. CMOS technology is also used for analog circuits such as image sensors (CMOS sensors), data conversion, data converters, RF circuits (RF CMOS), and highly integrated transceivers for many types of communication. In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented an insulated-gate transistor (IGFET) with an inversion layer. Bardeen's concept forms the basis of CMOS technology today. The CMOS process was presented by Fairchild Semico ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Charge-coupled Device
A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a major technology used in digital imaging. Overview In a CCD image sensor, pixels are represented by Doping (semiconductor), p-doped metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) capacitors. These MOS capacitors, the basic building blocks of a CCD, are biased above the threshold for inversion when image acquisition begins, allowing the conversion of incoming photons into electron charges at the semiconductor-oxide interface; the CCD is then used to read out these charges. Although CCDs are not the only technology to allow for light detection, CCD image sensors are widely used in professional, medical, and scientific applications where high-quality image data are required. In applications with less exacting quality demands, such as consumer and pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Lysozyme
Lysozyme (, muramidase, ''N''-acetylmuramide glycanhydrolase; systematic name peptidoglycan ''N''-acetylmuramoylhydrolase) is an antimicrobial enzyme produced by animals that forms part of the innate immune system. It is a glycoside hydrolase that catalyzes the following process: : Hydrolysis of (1→4)-β-linkages between ''N''-acetylmuramic acid and ''N''-acetyl-D-glucosamine residues in a peptidoglycan and between ''N''-acetyl-D-glucosamine residues in chitodextrins Peptidoglycan is the major component of gram-positive bacterial cell wall. This hydrolysis in turn compromises the integrity of bacterial cell walls causing lysis of the bacteria. Lysozyme is abundant in secretions including tears, saliva, human milk, and mucus. It is also present in cytoplasmic granules of the macrophages and the polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs). Large amounts of lysozyme can be found in egg white. C-type lysozymes are closely related to alpha-lactalbumin, α-lactalbumin in sequence and st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Diffraction
Diffraction is the deviation of waves from straight-line propagation without any change in their energy due to an obstacle or through an aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a secondary source of the Wave propagation, propagating wave. Diffraction is the same physical effect as Wave interference, interference, but interference is typically applied to superposition of a few waves and the term diffraction is used when many waves are superposed. Italian scientist Francesco Maria Grimaldi coined the word ''diffraction'' and was the first to record accurate observations of the phenomenon in 1660 in science, 1660. In classical physics, the diffraction phenomenon is described by the Huygens–Fresnel principle that treats each point in a propagating wavefront as a collection of individual spherical wavelets. The characteristic pattern is most pronounced when a wave from a Coherence (physics), coherent source (such as a laser) encounters a slit/aperture tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Transmission Electron Cryomicroscopy
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a transmission electron microscopy technique applied to samples cooled to cryogenic temperatures. For biological specimens, the structure is preserved by embedding in an environment of vitreous ice. An aqueous sample solution is applied to a grid-mesh and plunge-frozen in liquid ethane or a mixture of liquid ethane and propane. While development of the technique began in the 1970s, recent advances in detector technology and software algorithms have allowed for the determination of biomolecular structures at near-atomic resolution. This has attracted wide attention to the approach as an alternative to X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy in the structural biology field. In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson "for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution." '' Nature Methods'' also named c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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X-ray Crystallography
X-ray crystallography is the experimental science of determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to Diffraction, diffract in specific directions. By measuring the angles and intensities of the X-ray diffraction, a crystallography, crystallographer can produce a three-dimensional picture of the density of electrons within the crystal and the positions of the atoms, as well as their chemical bonds, crystallographic disorder, and other information. X-ray crystallography has been fundamental in the development of many scientific fields. In its first decades of use, this method determined the size of atoms, the lengths and types of chemical bonds, and the atomic-scale differences between various materials, especially minerals and alloys. The method has also revealed the structure and function of many biological molecules, including vitamins, drugs, proteins and nucleic acids such as DNA. X-ray crystall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Tamir Gonen
Tamir Gonen (born 1975) is an American structural biochemist and membrane biophysicist best known for his contributions to structural biology of membrane proteins, membrane biochemistry and electron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM) particularly in electron crystallography of 2D crystals and for the development of 3D electron crystallography from microscopic crystals known as MicroED. Gonen is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, the founding director of the MicroED Imaging Center at UCLA and a Member of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Education Gonen attended the University of Auckland in New Zealand and graduated with a Bachelor of Science double major in Inorganic Chemistry and Biological Sciences, followed by First Class Honors in Biological Sciences in 1998. He then obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in Biological Science in 2002 from the University of Auckland for research with by Edward N. Baker and Joer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |