Building and Validating Atomic Models for Cryo-EM Density Maps

While it is now possible to produce structures for large macromolecular complexes at better than 3Å resolution electron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM), the vast majority of structures are determined to lower resolutions (3-10Å). As atomic details are often lacking in this resolution range, accurate interpretation of macromolecular structure is often challenging and somewhat limited [1]. To this end we have developed and applied a number of de novo model building and validation tools [2-4].