Cryo-electron microscopy for structural biology:current status and future perspectives

Recently, significant technical breakthroughs in both hardware equipment and software algorithms have enabled cryo-electron microscopy(cryo-EM) to become one of the most important techniques in biological structural analysis. The technical aspects of cryo-EM define its unique advantages and the direction of development. As a rapidly emerging field, cryo-EM has benefitted from highly interdisciplinary research efforts. Here we review the current status of cryo-EM in the context of structural biology and discuss the technical challenges. It may eventually merge structural and cell biology at multiple scales.