A Bayesian approach to single-particle electron cryo-tomography in RELION-4.0

  1. Jasenko Zivanov  Is a corresponding author
  2. Joaquín Otón
  3. Zunlong Ke
  4. Andriko von Kügelgen
  5. Euan Pyle
  6. Kun Qu
  7. Dustin Morado
  8. Daniel Castaño-Díez
  9. Giulia Zanetti
  10. Tanmay AM Bharat
  11. John AG Briggs
  12. Sjors HW Scheres  Is a corresponding author
  1. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
  2. ALBA Synchrotron, Spain
  3. Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom
  4. University of Basel, Switzerland

Abstract

We present a new approach for macromolecular structure determination from multiple particles in electron cryo-tomography (cryo-ET) data sets. Whereas existing subtomogram averaging approaches are based on 3D data models, we propose to optimise a regularised likelihood target that approximates a function of the 2D experimental images. In addition, analogous to Bayesian polishing and contrast transfer function (CTF) refinement in single-particle analysis, we describe approaches that exploit the increased signal-to-noise ratio in the averaged structure to optimise tilt series alignments, beam-induced motions of the particles throughout the tilt series acquisition, defoci of the individual particles, as well as higher-order optical aberrations of the microscope. Implementation of our approaches in the open-source software package RELION aims to facilitate their general use, in particular for those researchers who are already familiar with its single-particle analysis tools. We illustrate for three applications that our approaches allow structure determination from cryo-ET data to resolutions sufficient for de novo atomic modelling.

Data availability

We have only used previously published cryo-EM data sets for testing our software.Reconstructed maps and atomic models generated in this study have been submitted to the EMDB and PDB, with entry codes as indicated in Table 1.

The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Jasenko Zivanov

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    jasenko.zivanov@gmail.com
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8407-0759
  2. Joaquín Otón

    ALBA Synchrotron, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2195-4730
  3. Zunlong Ke

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8408-850X
  4. Andriko von Kügelgen

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0017-2414
  5. Euan Pyle

    Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4633-4917
  6. Kun Qu

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Dustin Morado

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Daniel Castaño-Díez

    University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Giulia Zanetti

    Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    Giulia Zanetti, Reviewing editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1905-0342
  10. Tanmay AM Bharat

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0168-0277
  11. John AG Briggs

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3990-6910
  12. Sjors HW Scheres

    MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    scheres@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    Sjors HW Scheres, Reviewing editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0462-6540

Funding

UK Research and Innovation (MC_UP_A025_1013)

  • Sjors HW Scheres

UK Research and Innovation (MC_UP_1201/16)

  • John AG Briggs

European Research Council (ERC-CoG-2014 grant 648432)

  • John AG Briggs

European Research Council (ERC-StG-2019 grant 852915)

  • Giulia Zanetti

Swiss National Science Foundation (205321_179041/1)

  • Daniel Castaño-Díez

UK Research and Innovation (BBSRC grant BB/T002670/1)

  • Giulia Zanetti

European Research Council (ERC-AdG-2015 grant 692726)

  • Jasenko Zivanov

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Edward H Egelman, University of Virginia, United States

Version history

  1. Preprint posted: February 28, 2022 (view preprint)
  2. Received: September 26, 2022
  3. Accepted: December 4, 2022
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: December 5, 2022 (version 1)
  5. Accepted Manuscript updated: December 6, 2022 (version 2)
  6. Version of Record published: January 5, 2023 (version 3)

Copyright

© 2022, Zivanov et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 3,508
    views
  • 547
    downloads
  • 100
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Jasenko Zivanov
  2. Joaquín Otón
  3. Zunlong Ke
  4. Andriko von Kügelgen
  5. Euan Pyle
  6. Kun Qu
  7. Dustin Morado
  8. Daniel Castaño-Díez
  9. Giulia Zanetti
  10. Tanmay AM Bharat
  11. John AG Briggs
  12. Sjors HW Scheres
(2022)
A Bayesian approach to single-particle electron cryo-tomography in RELION-4.0
eLife 11:e83724.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.83724

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.83724

Further reading

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Damien M Rasmussen, Manny M Semonis ... Nicholas M Levinson
    Research Article

    The type II class of RAF inhibitors currently in clinical trials paradoxically activate BRAF at subsaturating concentrations. Activation is mediated by induction of BRAF dimers, but why activation rather than inhibition occurs remains unclear. Using biophysical methods tracking BRAF dimerization and conformation, we built an allosteric model of inhibitor-induced dimerization that resolves the allosteric contributions of inhibitor binding to the two active sites of the dimer, revealing key differences between type I and type II RAF inhibitors. For type II inhibitors the allosteric coupling between inhibitor binding and BRAF dimerization is distributed asymmetrically across the two dimer binding sites, with binding to the first site dominating the allostery. This asymmetry results in efficient and selective induction of dimers with one inhibited and one catalytically active subunit. Our allosteric models quantitatively account for paradoxical activation data measured for 11 RAF inhibitors. Unlike type II inhibitors, type I inhibitors lack allosteric asymmetry and do not activate BRAF homodimers. Finally, NMR data reveal that BRAF homodimers are dynamically asymmetric with only one of the subunits locked in the active αC-in state. This provides a structural mechanism for how binding of only a single αC-in inhibitor molecule can induce potent BRAF dimerization and activation.

    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Nicholas James Ose, Paul Campitelli ... Sefika Banu Ozkan
    Research Article

    We integrate evolutionary predictions based on the neutral theory of molecular evolution with protein dynamics to generate mechanistic insight into the molecular adaptations of the SARS-COV-2 spike (S) protein. With this approach, we first identified candidate adaptive polymorphisms (CAPs) of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein and assessed the impact of these CAPs through dynamics analysis. Not only have we found that CAPs frequently overlap with well-known functional sites, but also, using several different dynamics-based metrics, we reveal the critical allosteric interplay between SARS-CoV-2 CAPs and the S protein binding sites with the human ACE2 (hACE2) protein. CAPs interact far differently with the hACE2 binding site residues in the open conformation of the S protein compared to the closed form. In particular, the CAP sites control the dynamics of binding residues in the open state, suggesting an allosteric control of hACE2 binding. We also explored the characteristic mutations of different SARS-CoV-2 strains to find dynamic hallmarks and potential effects of future mutations. Our analyses reveal that Delta strain-specific variants have non-additive (i.e., epistatic) interactions with CAP sites, whereas the less pathogenic Omicron strains have mostly additive mutations. Finally, our dynamics-based analysis suggests that the novel mutations observed in the Omicron strain epistatically interact with the CAP sites to help escape antibody binding.