Analysis of Viruses in the Cellular Context by Electron Tomography

Electron microscopy is a powerful tool to study viral infection in the cellular context. A vast majority of our ultrastructural understanding of cellular infection has been acquired through imaging of chemically fixed, plastic embedded samples using traditional electron microscopy. Application of electron tomography to such specimens enables ultrastructural analysis of virus infection in three-dimensions. Advances in cryo-fixation and cryo-electron microscopy and tomography have allowed investigation of viruses in the cellular context under near-native frozen-hydrated conditions, pushing structural analysis to higher resolutions, especially when combined with sub-tomogram averaging of multiple copies of the repeating unit.