Measuring the optimal exposure for single particle cryo-EM using a 2.6 Å reconstruction of rotavirus VP6

Biological specimens suffer radiation damage when imaged in an electron microscope, ultimately limiting the attainable resolution. At a given resolution, an optimal exposure can be defined that maximizes the signal-to-noise ratio in the image. Using a 2.6 Å resolution single particle cryo-EM reconstruction of rotavirus VP6, determined from movies recorded with a total exposure of 100 electrons/Å(2), we obtained accurate measurements of optimal exposure values over a wide range of resolutions. At low and intermediate resolutions, our measured values are considerably higher than obtained previously for crystalline specimens, indicating that both images and movies should be collected with higher exposures than…

• HH
  Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• NI
  National Institute of General Medical Sciences

  Award: GM103310