Optimized Negative Staining: a High-throughput Protocol for Examining Small and Asymmetric Protein Structure by Electron MicroscopyMatthew Rames 1, Yadong Yu 1, Gang Ren 1
1Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Molecular Foundry
More than half of proteins are small proteins (molecular mass <200 kDa) that are challenging for both electron microscope imaging and three-dimensional reconstructions. Optimized negative staining is a robust and high-throughput protocol to obtain high contrast and relatively high resolution (~1 nm) images of small asymmetric proteins or complexes under different physiological conditions.