Resolution Measurement from a Single Reconstructed Cryo-EM Density Map with Multiscale Spectral Analysis

J Chem Inf Model. 2018 Jun 25;58(6):1303-1311. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.8b00149. Epub 2018 Jun 4.

Abstract

As a relatively new technology to solve the three-dimensional (3D) structure of a protein or protein complex, single-particle reconstruction (SPR) of cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) images shows much superiority and is in a rapidly developing stage. Resolution measurement in SPR, which evaluates the quality of a reconstructed 3D density map, plays a critical role in promoting methodology development of SPR and structural biology. Because there is no benchmark map in the generation of a new structure, how to realize the resolution estimation of a new map is still an open problem. Existing approaches try to generate a hypothetical benchmark map by reconstructing two 3D models from two halves of the original 2D images for cross-reference, which may result in a premature estimation with a half-data model. In this paper, we report a new self-reference-based resolution estimation protocol, called SRes, that requires only a single reconstructed 3D map. The core idea of SRes is to perform a multiscale spectral analysis (MSSA) on the map through multiple size-variable masks segmenting the map. The MSSA-derived multiscale spectral signal-to-noise ratios (mSSNRs) reveal that their corresponding estimated resolutions will show a cliff jump phenomenon, indicating a significant change in the SSNR properties. The critical point on the cliff borderline is demonstrated to be the right estimator for the resolution of the map.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Cryoelectron Microscopy / methods*
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods*
  • Models, Molecular
  • Protein Conformation
  • Proteins / chemistry
  • Proteins / ultrastructure*

Substances

  • Proteins