Structure analysis of soluble proteins using electron crystallography

Automatic Acquisition and Image Analysis of 2D Crystals

2D-crystallization in combination with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is one of the few methods for the structural analysis of membrane proteins in their native state. However, the parameters for the generation of large crystalline sheets are typically difficult to identify for a given protein. Many repetitive and time consuming screening steps by TEM are therefore necessary to find the best crystallization and preparation conditions. Although several software packages offer the possibility to control an electron microscope, none is completely adapted for a fully automated and completely integrated acquisition and analysis of 2D crystals. Here we report on the development of a fully automatic screening and on-line analysis software for the fast and automatic survey of large quantities of negatively stained EM samples for 2D crystallography.

High-speed atomic force microscopy coming of age

High-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM) is now materialized. It allows direct visualization of dynamic structural changes and dynamic processes of functioning biological molecules in physiological solutions, at high spatiotemporal resolution. Dynamic molecular events unselectively appear in detail in an AFM movie, facilitating our understanding of how biological molecules operate to function. This review describes a historical overview of technical development towards HS-AFM, summarizes elementary devices and techniques used in the current HS-AFM, and then highlights recent imaging studies. Finally, future challenges of HS-AFM studies are briefly discussed.

The use of trehalose in the preparation of specimens for molecular electron microscopy

Biological specimens have to be prepared for imaging in the electron microscope in a way that preserves their native structure. Two-dimensional (2D) protein crystals to be analyzed by electron crystallography are best preserved by sugar embedding. One of the sugars often used to embed 2D crystals is trehalose, a disaccharide used by many organisms for protection against stress conditions. Sugars such as trehalose can also be added to negative staining solutions used to prepare proteins and macromolecular complexes for structural studies by single-particle electron microscopy (EM). In this review, we describe trehalose and its characteristics that make it so well suited for preparation of EM specimens and we review specimen preparation methods with a focus on the use of trehalose.

3D electron microscopy of biological nanomachines: principles and applications

Transmission electron microscopy is a powerful technique for studying the three-dimensional (3D) structure of a wide range of biological specimens. Knowledge of this structure is crucial for fully understanding complex relationships among macromolecular complexes and organelles in living cells. In this paper, we present the principles and main application domains of 3D transmission electron microscopy in structural biology. Moreover, we survey current developments needed in this field, and discuss the close relationship of 3D transmission electron microscopy with other experimental techniques aimed at obtaining structural and dynamical information from the scale of whole living cells to atomic structure of macromolecular complexes.

On the freezing and identification of lipid monolayer 2-D arrays for cryoelectron microscopy

Lipid monolayers provide a convenient vehicle for the crystallization of biological macromolecules for 3-D electron microscopy. Although numerous examples of 3-D images from 2-D protein arrays have been described from negatively stained specimens, only six structures have been done from frozen-hydrated specimens. We describe here a method that makes high quality frozen-hydrated specimens of lipid monolayer arrays for cryoelectron microscopy. The method uses holey carbon films with patterned holes for monolayer recovery, blotting and plunge freezing to produce thin aqueous films which cover >90% of the available grid area. With this method, even specimens with relatively infrequent crystals can be screened using automated data collection techniques. Though developed for microscopic examination of 2-D arrays, the method may have wider application to the preparation of single particle specimens for 3-D image reconstruction.

Spectral signal-to-noise ratio and resolution assessment of 3D reconstructions

Measuring the quality of three-dimensional (3D) reconstructed biological macromolecules by transmission electron microscopy is still an open problem. In this article, we extend the applicability of the spectral signal-to-noise ratio (SSNR) to the evaluation of 3D volumes reconstructed with any reconstruction algorithm. The basis of the method is to measure the consistency between the data and a corresponding set of reprojections computed for the reconstructed 3D map. The idiosyncrasies of the reconstruction algorithm are taken explicitly into account by performing a noise-only reconstruction. This results in the definition of a 3D SSNR which provides an objective indicator of the quality of the 3D reconstruction. Furthermore, the information to build the SSNR can be used to produce a volumetric SSNR (VSSNR). Our method overcomes the need to divide the data set in two. It also provides a direct measure of the performance of the reconstruction algorithm itself; this latter information is typically not available with the standard resolution methods which are primarily focused on reproducibility alone.

Normalizing projection images: a study of image normalizing procedures for single particle three-dimensional electron microscopy

In the process of three-dimensional reconstruction of single particle biological macromolecules several hundreds, or thousands, of projection images are taken from tens or hundreds of independently digitized micrographs. These different micrographs show differences in the background grey level and particle contrast and, therefore, have to be normalized by scaling their pixel values before entering the reconstruction process. In this work several normalization procedures are studied using a statistical comparison framework. We finally show that the use of the different normalization methods affects the reconstruction quality, providing guidance on the choice of normalization procedures.

Electron holography of non-stained bacterial surface layer proteins

We report transmission electron microscopy (TEM) investigations on bacterial surface layers (S-layers) which belong to the simplest biomembranes existing in nature. S-layers are regular 2D protein crystals composed of single protein or glycoprotein species. In their native form, S-layers are weak phase objects giving only poor contrast in conventional TEM. Therefore, they are usually examined negatively stained. However, staining with heavy metal compounds may cause the formation of structural artefacts. In this work, electron microscopy studies of non-stained S-layers of Bacillus sphaericus NCTC 9602 were performed. Compared to other proteins, these S-layers are found relatively stable against radiation damage. Electron holography was applied where information about phase and amplitude of the diffracted electron wave is simultaneously obtained. In spite of small phase shifts observed, the phase image reconstructed from the hologram of the non-stained S-layer is found to be sensitive to rather slight structure and thickness variations. The lateral resolution, obtained so far, is less than that of conventional electron microscopy of negatively stained S-layers. It corresponds to the main lattice planes of 12.4 nm observed in the reconstructed electron phase image. In addition, as a unique feature of electron holography the phase image provides thickness information. Thus, the existence of double layers of the protein crystals could be easily visualized by the height profile of the specimen.

A low-dose electron diffraction assay for protection of protein structure against damage from drying

A new assay using low-dose electron diffraction to measure the protection of protein structure against damage from drying is described. When thin single crystals of catalase are dried within water alone, low-dose electron diffraction yields no Bragg spots. Drying within an experimental aqueous solution that permits detection of diffraction spots thereby indicates a positive result, and the extent of these Bragg reflections into the high angle range gives a quantitative measure of the degree of protection. Bragg spots out to 3.73.9 are recorded for drying within 100 mM solutions of the known structure-preserving sugars, sucrose, tannin, and trehalose. The ability of trehalose to maintain native protein structure during drying starts between 10 and 25 mM, and changes only slightly at concentrations above this threshold; with drying in 150-mM trehalose, catalase crystals yield diffraction spots out to 3.7. Drying within the organic nonsugar polymer polyvinylpyrrolidone gives Bragg spots to 4.0. This new assay should be useful to measure the unexamined structure-preserving capabilities of modified sugars, other nonsugars, and mixtures to identify which protective matrix maintains native protein structure to the greatest extent during drying; electron crystallography using that optimal matrix should yield protein structure at improved levels of high resolution.

Terminal deletion mutants of myelin basic protein: new insights into self-association and phospholipid interactions

The 18.5kDa isoform of myelin basic protein (MBP) has strong and probably specific interactions with phosphoinositides that are of interest regarding this protein's function, and in effecting its two-dimensional crystallization for structural determination. We have designed and constructed truncation mutants of recombinant 18.5kDa murine myelin basic protein (rmMBP) lacking either the N- or C-terminal third, i.e. rmMBPDeltaN and rmMBPDeltaC, respectively. Both variants rmMBPDeltaC and rmMBPDeltaN generally had a reduced ability to aggregate lipid vesicles, compared to the whole protein, especially at lower protein/lipid ratios. Lipid vesicle cosedimentation showed that both truncated variants exhibited altered binding with phosphatidylinositol (PI). Incubation of these proteins under monolayers comprising PI and a nickel-chelating lipid yielded crystalline arrays of rmMBPDeltaC (but not rmMBPDeltaN) in the absence of high salt or osmolytes, which are required for crystallization of whole protein. This result suggests that the C-terminal segment of MBP is a significant source of conformational heterogeneity, and its removal will facilitate future planar or three-dimensional crystallization attempts. Incubation of rmMBPDeltaN and rmMBPDeltaC under monolayers comprising phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate and a nickel-chelating lipid yielded tubular structures of opposite chirality, suggesting a synergistic effect of both termini of MBP in organizing myelin lipids.

Effects of the osmolyte trimethylamine-N-oxide on conformation, self-association, and two-dimensional crystallization of myelin basic protein

The osmolyte trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) is a naturally in vivo occurring "chemical chaperone" that has been shown to stabilise the folding of numerous proteins. Myelin basic protein (MBP) is a molecule that has not yet been suitably crystallized either in three dimensions for X-ray crystallography or in two dimensions for electron crystallography. Here, we describe lipid monolayer crystallization experiments of two species of recombinant murine MBP in the presence of TMAO. One protein was unmodified, whereas the other contained six Arg/Lys-->Gln substitutions to mimic the effects of deimination (i.e., the enzymatic modification of Arg to citrulline), which reduces the net positive charge. Planar arrays of both proteins were formed on binary lipid monolayers containing a nickel-chelating lipid and a phosphoinositide. In the presence of TMAO, the diffraction spots of these arrays became sharper and more distinct than in its absence, indicating some improvement of crystallinity. The osmolyte also induced the formation of epitaxial growth of protein arrays, especially with the mutant protein. However, none of these assemblies was sufficiently ordered to extract high-resolution structural information. Circular dichroic spectroscopy showed that MBP gained no increase in ordered secondary structure in the presence of TMAO in bulk solution, whereas it did in the presence of lipids. Dynamic light-scattering experiments confirmed that the MBP preparations were monomodal under the optimal crystallization conditions determined by electron microscopy trials. The salt and osmolyte concentrations used were shown to result in a largely unassociated population of MBP. The amino acid composition of MBP overwhelmingly favours a disordered state, and a neural-network-based scheme predicted large segments that would be unlikely to adopt a regular conformation. Thus, this protein has an inherently disordered nature, which mitigates strongly against its crystallization for high-resolution structure determination.

The formation of helical tubular vesicles by binary monolayers containing a nickel-chelating lipid and phosphoinositides in the presence of basic polypeptides

Binary lipid monolayers consisting of equimolar proportions of a phosphoinositide and a nickel-chelating lipid formed helical tubular vesicular structures, which appeared to be induced and/or stabilized by myelin basic protein (MBP). Another basic polypeptide, poly-L-lysine, had a similar effect but not to as great a degree as MBP; the proteins thus appeared to act as polycations. Although, the nickel-chelating lipid is a synthetic product, other endogenous divalent cations such as Zn(2+), as well as phosphoinositides, are integral and dynamic components of the myelin sheath in vivo. There, comparable helical tubular structures might represent a means for sequestration of these lipids into domains of high local concentration, perhaps in regions where the membrane is greatly curved.

The effects of deimination of myelin basic protein on structures formed by its interaction with phosphoinositide-containing lipid monolayers

The recombinant 18.5-kDa charge isoform of murine myelin basic protein (rmMBP) is unmodified posttranslationally and was used to study the effects of deimination, i.e., the conversion of arginyl to citrullinyl residues, on the protein's interactions with itself and with lipids. The unmodified species rmMBP-Cit(0) (i.e., containing no citrullinyl residues) interacted with binary monolayers containing acidic (phosphatidylinositol) and nickel-chelating lipids to form paracrystalline arrays with 4.8-nm spacing. A sample of protein was deiminated to an average of 9 citrullinyl residues per molecule of protein, yielding rmMBP-Cit(9). Under both low- and high-salt conditions, this species formed better-ordered domains than rmMBP-Cit(0), viz., planar crystalline assemblies. Thus, deimination of MBP resulted in a significant alteration of its lipid-organizing and self-interaction properties that might be operative in myelin in vivo, especially in progression of the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis. Comparisons of amino acid sequences indicated significant similarities of MBP with filaggrin, a protein that is deiminated in another autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, suggesting that comparable epitopes could be targeted in both pathologies. In contrast, binary lipid monolayers consisting of phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate (or phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate) and a nickel-chelating lipid formed helical tubular vesicular structures, which appeared to be induced and/or stabilized by rmMBP, especially in its deiminated form. Sequence comparisons with other actin- and phosphoinositide-binding proteins (vinculin, ActA, MARCKS) suggested that the carboxyl-terminal segment of MBP could form an amphipathic alpha helix and was the phosphoinositide binding site.

Electron cryomicroscopy methods

Electron cryomicroscopy methods comprise a rapidly expanding field providing insights into the structure and function of biological macromolecules and their supramolecular assemblies. The 3.8 A resolution structure of the membrane protein aquaporin, a view of the herpesvirus capsid at 8.5 A and the 10 A resolution structure of the spliceosomal U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex are three outstanding examples emphasizing the versatility of this technique.