Uncharacterized Bacterial Structures Revealed by Electron Cryotomography.

ABSTRACT: Electron cryotomography (ECT) can reveal the native structure and arrangement of macromolecular complexes inside intact cells. This technique has greatly advanced our understanding of the ultrastructure of bacterial cells. We now view bacteria as structurally complex assemblies of macromolecular machines rather than as undifferentiated bags of enzymes. To date, our group has applied ECT to nearly 90 different bacterial species, collecting more than 15,000 cryotomograms. In addition to known structures, we have observed, to our knowledge, several uncharacterized features in these tomograms. Some are completely novel structures; others expand the features or species range of known structure types. Here, we present a survey of these uncharacterized bacterial structures in the hopes of acceler

SUBMITTER: Dobro MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5553035 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature