Koji Yonekura

The growth of the bacterial flagellar filament occurs at its distal end by self-assembly of flagellin transported from the cytoplasm through the narrow central channel. The cap at the growing end is essential for its growth, remaining stably attached while permitting the flagellin insertion. In order to understand the assembly mechanism, we used electron microscopy to study the structures of the cap-filament complex and isolated cap dimer. Five leg-like anchor domains of the pentameric cap flexi

Membrane proteins and macromolecular complexes often yield crystals too small or too thin for even the modern synchrotron X-ray beam. Electron crystallography could provide a powerful means for structure determination with such undersized crystals, as protein atoms diffract electrons four to five orders of magnitude more strongly than they do X-rays. Furthermore, as electron crystallography yields Coulomb potential maps rather than electron density maps, it could provide a unique method to visua

The layered structures of graphite and related nanographene molecules play key roles in their physical and electronic functions. However, the stacking modes of negatively curved nanographenes remain unclear, owing to the lack of suitable nanographene molecules. Herein, we report the synthesis and one-dimensional supramolecular self-assembly of negatively curved nanographenes without any assembly-assisting substituents. This curved nanographene self-assembles in various organic solvents and acts

This paper reports a suitable treatment of electron scattering factors of charged atoms for refinement of atomic models against cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) maps. The ScatCurve package developed here supports various curve models for parameterization of scattering factors and the parameter tables can be implemented in major refinement programs in structural biology. Partial charge values of charged amino acids in crystal structures were changed in small steps for refinement of the atomic m

Acaryochloris marina is one of the cyanobacterial species that can use far-red light to drive photochemical reactions for oxygenic photosynthesis. Here, we report the structure of A. marina photosystem I (PSI) reaction center, determined by cryo-electron microscopy at 2.58 Å resolution. The structure reveals an arrangement of electron carriers and light-harvesting pigments distinct from other type I reaction centers. The paired chlorophyll, or special pair (also referred to as P740 in this case)

A new cryo-EM system has been investigated for single particle analysis of protein structures. The system provides parallel illumination of a highly-coherent 300 kV electron beam from a cold-field emission gun, and boosts image contrast with an in-column energy filter and a hole-free phase plate. It includes motorized cryo-sample loading and automated liquid-nitrogen filling for cooling multiple samples. In this study, we describe gun and electron beam characteristics, and demonstrate the suitab

A new cryo-EM system has been developed and investigated for use in protein electron 3D crystallography. The system provides parallel illumination of a coherent 300 kV electron beam to a sample, filters out energy-loss electrons through the sample with an in-column energy filter, and allows rotational data collection on a fast camera. It also possesses motorized cryo-sample loading and automated liquid-nitrogen filling for cooling of multiple samples. To facilitate its use, we developed GUI prog

In cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) data collection, locating a target object is error-prone. Here, we present a machine learning-based approach with a real-time object locator named yoneoLocr using YOLO, a well-known object detection system. Implementation shows its effectiveness in rapidly and precisely locating carbon holes in single particle cryo-EM and in locating crystals and evaluating electron diffraction (ED) patterns in automated cryo-electron crystallography (cryo-EX) data collectio

The bacterial flagellar motor is driven by an ion flux through a channel called MotAB in Escherichia coli or Salmonella and PomAB in Vibrio alginolyticus. PomAB is composed of two transmembrane (TM) components, PomA and PomB, and converts a sodium ion flux to rotation of the flagellum. Its homolog, MotAB, utilizes protons instead of sodium ions. PomB/MotB has a peptidoglycan (PG)-binding motif in the periplasmic domain, allowing it to function as the stator by being anchored to the PG layer. To

Ionic scattering factors of atoms that compose biological molecules have been computed by the multi-configuration Dirac-Fock method. These ions are chemically unstable and their scattering factors had not been reported except for O^-. Yet these factors are required for the estimation of partial charges in protein molecules and nucleic acids. The electron scattering factors of these ions are particularly important as the electron scattering curves vary considerably between neutral and c