Using Tomoauto: A Protocol for High-throughput Automated Cryo-electron Tomography

Summary

We present a protocol on how to utilize high-throughput cryo-electron tomography to determine high resolution in situ structures of molecular machines. The protocol permits large amounts of data to be processed, avoids common bottlenecks and reduces resource downtime, allowing the user to focus on important biological questions.

Abstract

Cryo-electron tomography (Cryo-ET) is a powerful three-dimensional (3-D) imaging technique for visualizing macromolecular complexes in their native context at a molecular level. The technique involves initially preserving the sample in its native state by rapidly freezing the specimen in vitreous ice, then collecting a series of micrographs from different angles at high magnification, and finally computationally reconstructing a 3-D density map. The frozen-hydrated specimen is extremely sensitive to the electron beam and so micrographs are collected at very low electron doses to limit the radiation damage. As a result, the raw cryo-tomogram has a very low signal to noise ratio characterized by an intrinsically noisy image. To better visualize subjects of interest, conventional imaging analysis and sub-tomogram averaging in which sub-tomograms of the subject are extracted from the initial tomogram and aligned and averaged are utilized to improve both contrast and resolution. Large datasets of tilt-series are essential to understanding and resolving the complexes at different states, conditions, or mutations as well as obtaining a large enough collection of sub-tomograms for averaging and classification. Collecting and processing this data can be a major obstacle preventing further analysis. Here we describe a high-throughput cryo-ET protocol based on a computer-controlled 300kV cryo-electron microscope, a direct detection device (DDD) camera and a highly effective, semi-automated image-processing pipeline software wrapper library tomoauto developed in-house. This protocol has been effectively utilized to visualize the intact type III secretion system (T3SS) in Shigella flexneri minicells. It can be applicable to any project suitable for cryo-ET.

Introduction

Type III secretion systems (T3SS) are essential virulence determinants for many Gram-negative pathogens. The injectisome, also known as the needle complex, is the central T3SS machine required for direct translocation of effector proteins from the bacterium into eukaryotic host cells^{1, 2}. The injectisome comprises an extracellular needle, a basal body, and a cytoplasmic complex also known as the sorting complex³. Previous studies have elucidated 3-D structures of purified injectisomes from Salmonella and Shigella, along with the atomic structures of major basal body proteins^{4, 5}. Recent in situ structures of ....

Protocol

1. Minicell Preparation

1. To make S. flexneri minicells, transform 1 µl of plasmid pBS58, which constitutively expresses Escherichia coli cell division genes ftsQ, ftsA, and ftsZ from a low-copy spectinomycin-resistant plasmid into 5 µl electrocompetent Streptomycin-resistant serotype 5a (M90T-Sm) cells by electroporation at 2.5 kV for 5 msec in 1 mm cuvettes.
2. Store minicell samples at -80 °C in 15% glycerol in a 1.5 ml cryogenic microtube. When ready for use, scrape approximately 5 μl of cells from the unthawed microtube using a pipette tip and suspend the cells in 4 ml tryptic soy broth with....

Results

Samples of minicells S. flexneri were collected and processed as showed in the schematic Figure 1 using tomoauto following the pipeline detailed in Figure 2. Tilt-series were collected using SerialEM¹⁰, which allows for high-throughput tilt-series acquisition at points designated by the user on low-magnification montage maps (Figure 3). Micrographs were collected using dose-fractionation mode on a dire.......

Discussion

The high-throughput method described here enabled us to process 1,917 cryo tilt-series and produce over 4,500 sub-tomograms of the intact S. flexneri injectisome¹⁹. The collected data led to the detailed characterization of in situ injectisome, including the cytoplasmic sorting complex. The method was also utilized to visualize several mutant cells with specific deletion of putative protein components, which helped elucidate the composition of the sorting platform of the injectisome........

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Glycerol	Sigma-Aldrich	G9012
Tyrptic Soy Broth	Sigma-Aldrich	22092
Spectinomycin	Sigma-Aldrich	S0692
Electroporation Apparatus	Bio-rad	165-2100
1 mm Cuvette	BTX	45-0124
1.5 ml Cryogenic Tube	Thermoscientific	5000-1020
1.5 ml Microcentrifuge Tube	Sigma-Aldrich	Z336769
Holey Carbon Grids	Quantifoil (Electron Microscopy Sciences)	Q2100CR2	R2/2 200 Cu
Glow Discharge Device	In-House		Commercial Alternative Available
Vacuum Desiccator	Sigma-Aldrich	Z119016	Used in In-House Glow Discharge Device
High-Frequency Generator	Electro-Technic Products	BD-10A	Used in In-House Glow Discharge Device.  CAUTION: This device generates high voltages.
Centrifuge
Forceps	Dumont (Electron Microscopy Sciences)	72705-D	Style 5 Anti-magnetic
Colliodal Gold	Aurion		BSA 10nm
Filter Paper	Whatman		#2
Ethane	Matheson Tri-Gas	UN1035
Nitrogen	Matheson Tri-Gas	UN1977
Plunger Device	In-House		Commercial Alternative Available
Cryogenic Grid Storage Box	Electron Microscopy Sciences	71166-30
Transmission Electron Microscope	FEI		Tecnai Polara F30 (300 KeV)
Direct Detection Device Camera	Gatan		K2 Summit
Tomogram Acquisiton Software	SerialEM		http://bio3d.colorado.eud/SerialEM Alternatives: UCSF Tomography, Leginon, FEI Batch Tomography
Beam-induced Motion Correction Software	MOTIONCORR		http://cryoem.ucsf.edu/software/driftcorr.html Requires >2GB Nvidia GPU
Tilt-Series Alignment Software	IMOD		http://bio3d.colorado.edu/IMOD Alternatives: XMIPP, Protomo
Automatic Fiducial Marker Modelling Software	IMOD		Alternatives: RAPTOR (Included in IMOD0 (Usable in tomoauto)
CTF Determination Software	IMOD		Alternatives: CTFFIND http://grigoriefflab.janelia.org/ctf (Usable in tomoauto)
Tilt-Series Reconstruction Software	tomo3d		https://sites.google.com/site/3demimageprocessing/tomo3d Alternatives: IMOD, XMIPP http://xmipp.cnb.csic.es , Protomo
Tilt-Series Automated Processing Software	tomoauto		https://github.com/DustinMorado/tomoauto
Particle Picking Software	i3		http://www.electrontomography.org Alternatives: IMOD
Subvolume Averaging Software	i3		Alternatives: PEET http://bio3d.colorado.edu/PEET, Dynamo https://dynamo.bioz.unibas.ch , PyTom http://pytom.org