Abstract
Ribosomes are large ribonucleoprotein complexes that have been proved to be ideal biological sample for the development of the cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) field. On the other hand, advancement in cryo-EM technologies have helped in elucidating detailed structure-function aspects of various kinds of ribosomes, belonging to prokaryotic, organellar, and complex eukaryotic systems. In a relatively short duration of time, through rapid technological advances, cryo-EM has generated number of ribosome structures from sub atomic to atomic resolutions with the capability of visualizing the side chain interactions of protein structures. This has given us the scope to visualize various drugs and their binding sites on the ribosomes, wherefrom there are greater chances to improve further and modify the drugs and verify their efficacy. This review provides an account of the improvement of the cryo-EM in the light of performing research on ribosomes and understanding some of the ribosome’s structure-function aspects in further details.
Key Words: Cryo-electron microscopy, ribosome, single particle reconstruction, Direct Electron Detectors, Image processing.