Revealing the assembly of filamentous proteins with scanning transmission electron microscopy.

ABSTRACT: Filamentous proteins are responsible for the superior mechanical strength of our cells and tissues. The remarkable mechanical properties of protein filaments are tied to their complex molecular packing structure. However, since these filaments have widths of several to tens of nanometers, it has remained challenging to quantitatively probe their molecular mass density and three-dimensional packing order. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) is a powerful tool to perform simultaneous mass and morphology measurements on filamentous proteins at high resolution, but its applicability has been greatly limited by the lack of automated image processing methods. Here, we demonstrate a semi-automated tracking algorithm that is capable of analyzing the molecular packing density of intra-

SUBMITTER: Martinez-Torres C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6924676 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature