Cryo-EM facility

Talos120c

Thermo Scientific Talos120c microscope is operated at 120 keV, equipped with a LaB6 filament and a charge-coupled device, mainly used for sample screening and data collection on negatively stained biological specimens.

 

Glacios

Thermo Scientific Glacios cryo-TEM microscope is featured with a 200 keV XFEG optics, autoloader, Volta phase plate, data automated collection on Falcon III camera. It is applied for both single particle application (SPA) and cryo tomography.

 

Titan Krios

Thermo Scientific Krios G3i cryo-TEM microscope consists of a highly stable 300 keV XFEG optics, autoloader, Volta phase plate, Falcon III camera and a Gatan K3 direct electron detector, making it ideally suited for automated applications of SPA and cryo-tomography.

Aquilos

Thermo Scientific Aquilos cryo-FIB features of a dual beam system – electron beam and ion beam, is designed to the preparation of thin, electron-transparent lamellas for high-resolution cryo-electron tomography, or MicroED of micro-crystals.

 

 

Sample preparation

Our facility is equipped also with glow discharger, carbon coater, Thermo Scientific Vitrobot IV, provides users with access from sample preparation, screening to data collection.

 

Data Processing

Life science department (LIFS) users could send email to yizhang@ust.hk, applying for the access permission to the cryo-EM cluster. Other users shall contact your collaborators at LIFS first.

 

 

 

 

Latest research publications at the Biological Cryo-EM facility

• Structure and assembly of the α-carboxysome in the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus

• Parental histone transfer caught at the replication fork

• Cryo-EM structure of TMEM63C suggests it functions as a monomer

• The Novel H2B Variant, H2BW2, Destabilizes Nucleosomes and Regulates Gene Expression During Early Human Spermatogenesis

 

• Cryo-EM structure of cyanophage P-SCSP1u offers insights into DNA gating and evolution of T7-like viruses

• Metallo-supramolecular branched polymer protects particles from air-water interface in single-particle cryo-electron microscopy

• Menin “reads” H3K79me2 mark in a nucleosomal context

• DDK promotes DNA replication initiation: Mechanistic and structural insights

• Structural insights into broadly neutralizing antibodies elicited by hybrid immunity against SARS-CoV-2

 

• Apicosome: newly identified cell-type-specific organelle in mouse cochlear and vestibular hair cells

• The human pre-replication complex is an open complex

• Abundant and cosmopolitan lineage of cyanopodoviruses lacking a DNA polymerase gene

• Biochemical and structural characterization of the cyanophage-encoded phosphate-binding protein: implications for enhanced phosphate uptake of infected cyanobacteria

• Application of metallo-supramolecular branched polymer improves particle distribution and orientation in single-particle cryo-EM

• Structural insights into broadly neutralizing antibodies elicited by hybrid immunity against SARS-CoV-2

• Cryo-EM structure of human hexameric MCM2-7 complex

• A broadly neutralizing antibody protects Syrian hamsters against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron challenge

• Structural Insight into the MCM double hexamer activation by Dbf4-Cdc7 kinase

• Joint Study by HKUST and HKU on DNA Replication Initiation Selected as One of Top 10 Scientific Advances in China for 2023

• 2023 HKUST Cryo-EM Summer workshop programme 20230617-20230618

• New schedule for 2021-2022 HKUST Cryo-EM Winter workshop on single particle analysis for academic users

 

• Latest science output
• A COVID mitigation plan of the Biological Cryo-EM Center, effective from 17 Feb 2022

• 2021-2022 HKUST Cryo-EM Winter workshop on single particle analysis for academic users – Register now

• HKUST Receives HK$100 million Donation from Lo Kwee Seong Foundation to Advance Frontiers of Knowledge of Life Science

• HKUST Scientists Determine Atomic Structure of DNA Replication Machine to Make Groundbreaking Discovery of DNA Replication Mechanism