2D hybrid analysis; A New approach to build 3D atomic model from 2D EM image

Matsumoto, Atsushi; Takagi, Junichi*; Iwasaki, Kenji*

We have been developing a new computational approach to build a 3D atomic model from an electron microscope (EM) image of a biological molecule. In the usual approach, a 3D-EM model is constructed from many EM images. Then, a 3D atomic model is built mainly by deforming the X-ray crystal structure so that it fits into the 3D-EM model better. Our approach, on the other hand, uses only a single EM image (or an averaged image) and an X-ray crystal structure (or a modeled structure), and has the advantage of being applicable even to flexible molecules, for which it is difficult to construct 3D-EM models. We will report the results about the application to integrins, transmembrane proteins that involved in cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix adhesions.