PCT

Automated particle correspondence and accurate
tilt-axis detection in tilted-image pairs

Overview

Single Particle Analysis deals with the problem of reconstructing a three dimensional structure of a macromolecule, e.g. protein-protein or protein-RNA complexes, starting from two dimensional images acquired through transmission electron microscopy.
Tilted electron microscope images are routinely collected for an ab initio structure reconstruction as a part of the Random Conical Tilt (RCT) or Orthogonal Tilt Reconstruction (OTR) methods, as well as for various applications using the "free-hand" procedure. These procedures all require identification of particle pairs in two corresponding images as well as accurate estimation of the tilt-axis used to rotate the electron microscope (EM) grid. We have developed a computational approach, PCT (particle correspondence from tilted pairs), based on tilt-invariant context and projection matching that addresses both problems. The method benefits from treating the two problems as a single optimization task. It automatically finds corresponding particle pairs and accurately computes tilt-axis direction even in the cases when EM grid is not perfectly planar.

Publication

If you use the resources in this page, please cite our paper:

"Automated particle correspondence and accurate tilt-axis detection in tilted-image pairs" Maxim Shatsky*, Pablo Arbelaez*, Bong-Gyoon Han, Dieter Typke, Steven E. Brenner, Jitendra Malik, Robert M. Glaeser. Journal of Structural Biology, 2014. (* equal contribution) [ online paper ] [ pdf ]