Discrete Tomography in Electron Microscopy

Structural biology is a very fast evolving field that provides key information to understand how biological processes happen in the cell. In essence, its aim is to obtain the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules, and then help to establish a link between structure and function. Among the different techniques that provide this three-dimensional information, in this chapter we will concentrate on the one normally referred to as Three-dimensional Electron Microscopy (3D EM), which provides information in the resolution range of between 0.5 to about 4 nanometers of protein and of complexes of proteins and nucleic acids by a process of three-dimensional reconstruction from projections. We seek to obtain information at the highest possible resolution level, and to this end we work toward incorporating into the reconstruction process as much experimental as well as a priori information as possible. This work is an assessment of the physical considerations that lead us to believe that discrete tomography has a role to play in this field,identifying the main problems to be addressed and the range of possible applications.

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