{"intvolume":"       393","department":[{"_id":"MiLe"}],"scopus_import":"1","oa_version":"None","ddc":["570"],"status":"public","_id":"22365","user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","publication":"Science","volume":393,"supplementarymaterial":"yes","page":"195-196","publication_identifier":{"issn":["0036-8075"],"eissn":["1095-9203"]},"type":"journal_article","has_accepted_license":"1","external_id":{"pmid":["42275466"]},"title":"Laser phase plate improves structure determination of small proteins by cryo-EM","issue":"6807","publisher":"AAAS","das_tickbox":"1","acknowledgement":"The authors thank O. Schwartz and S. Scheres for helpful remarks and discussions; D. Agard, B. Carragher, C. Potter, and P. Olshin for close collaboration; A. Singh, L. Maisenbacher, S. Strasser, and I. Pope for help with mirror inspection; J. Fang, E. Nogales, and J. Hurley for sharing their lab space and assisting with sample preparation; B. Buijsse, W. Hagen, B. Jiang, and T. Coyle at Thermo Fisher Scientific for the design of the custom transfer optics and technical support; G. Long and T. Gutierrez at the UC Berkeley Physics R&D Machine Shop for machining cavity components and tooling. This work was supported by the following: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative award numbers 2021-234606 and 2025-367757, National Institutes of Health grant R01GM126011, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant 9366, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program grant 25-111, and Cooperative Research and Development Agreement award AWD00004352 (to H.M.); National Institutes of Health fellowship F32GM149186 (to P.N.P.).","author":[{"first_name":"Petar N","last_name":"Petrov","full_name":"Petrov, Petar N","id":"b1d6732d-8cb6-11f0-baab-bd460ee3a287"},{"full_name":"Zhang, Jessie T.","last_name":"Zhang","first_name":"Jessie T."},{"full_name":"Remis, Jonathan","last_name":"Remis","first_name":"Jonathan"},{"first_name":"Jeremy J.","last_name":"Axelrod","full_name":"Axelrod, Jeremy J."},{"first_name":"Hang","last_name":"Cheng","full_name":"Cheng, Hang"},{"last_name":"Cooper","full_name":"Cooper, Eric S.","first_name":"Eric S."},{"last_name":"Hicklin","full_name":"Hicklin, Ian K.","first_name":"Ian K."},{"last_name":"Sandhaus","full_name":"Sandhaus, Shahar","first_name":"Shahar"},{"first_name":"Cooper","full_name":"Schnurr, Cooper","last_name":"Schnurr"},{"first_name":"Robert M.","last_name":"Glaeser","full_name":"Glaeser, Robert M."},{"full_name":"Müller, Holger","last_name":"Müller","first_name":"Holger"}],"quality_controlled":"1","pmid":1,"date_created":"2026-07-19T22:01:46Z","doi":"10.1126/science.aeh0665","article_type":"original","OA_type":"closed access","dataavailabilitystatement":"The datasets are publicly available in the Electron Microscopy Public Image Archive [A1: EMPIAR-13528 (on), EMPIAR-13527 (off); A2: EMPIAR-13529 (on), EMPIAR-13526 (off); A3: EMPIAR-13530 (on), EMPIAR-13525 (off); H1: EMPIAR-13535 (on), EMPIAR-13533 (off); H2: EMPIAR-13534 (on), EMPIAR-13532 (off); H3: EMPIAR-13537 (on), EMPIAR-13531 (off)]. The final reconstructed maps are deposited in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank [A1: EMD-76790 (on), EMD-76791 (off); A2: EMD-76792 (on), EMD-76793 (off); A3: EMD-76794 (on), EMD-76797 (off); H1: EMD-76802 (on), EMD-76804 (off); H2: EMD-76805 (on), EMD-76806 (off); H3: EMD-76807 (on), EMD-76809 (off)]. The initial structures in Fig. 3 are deposited at EMD-76810 (on) and EMD-76811 (off). Code for converting EER movies to binned TIF format with proper accounting for electron dose is deposited in Zenodo (47) and available on GitHub at https://github.com/matterwaves/eer2tiff/releases/tag/v0.1.0. All specimen preparation materials are commercially available.","article_processing_charge":"No","publication_status":"published","abstract":[{"lang":"eng","text":"Phase plates can, in principle, overcome the poor image contrast in cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and the resulting limits on the structural reconstruction of small proteins. However, previous designs have been unstable and compromised the high-resolution signal and have thus been unable to surpass results achieved by standard cryo-EM. Here, we show that the laser phase plate (LPP), installed in a modern, custom Titan Krios microscope, enhances the resolution in single-particle reconstruction of small proteins by improving specimen-motion correction and recovery of information from the early frames, as well as particle visualization, three-dimensional classification, and alignment. These advances use standard defocus ranges and reconstruction procedures but open the door to LPP-tailored protocols, offering further improvements by leveraging the LPP demonstrated here."}],"year":"2026","day":"09","citation":{"short":"P.N. Petrov, J.T. Zhang, J. Remis, J.J. Axelrod, H. Cheng, E.S. Cooper, I.K. Hicklin, S. Sandhaus, C. Schnurr, R.M. Glaeser, H. Müller, Science 393 (2026) 195–196.","apa":"Petrov, P. N., Zhang, J. T., Remis, J., Axelrod, J. J., Cheng, H., Cooper, E. S., … Müller, H. (2026). Laser phase plate improves structure determination of small proteins by cryo-EM. <i>Science</i>. AAAS. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh0665\">https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh0665</a>","ama":"Petrov PN, Zhang JT, Remis J, et al. Laser phase plate improves structure determination of small proteins by cryo-EM. <i>Science</i>. 2026;393(6807):195-196. doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh0665\">10.1126/science.aeh0665</a>","mla":"Petrov, Petar N., et al. “Laser Phase Plate Improves Structure Determination of Small Proteins by Cryo-EM.” <i>Science</i>, vol. 393, no. 6807, AAAS, 2026, pp. 195–96, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh0665\">10.1126/science.aeh0665</a>.","ista":"Petrov PN, Zhang JT, Remis J, Axelrod JJ, Cheng H, Cooper ES, Hicklin IK, Sandhaus S, Schnurr C, Glaeser RM, Müller H. 2026. Laser phase plate improves structure determination of small proteins by cryo-EM. Science. 393(6807), 195–196.","ieee":"P. N. Petrov <i>et al.</i>, “Laser phase plate improves structure determination of small proteins by cryo-EM,” <i>Science</i>, vol. 393, no. 6807. AAAS, pp. 195–196, 2026.","chicago":"Petrov, Petar N, Jessie T. Zhang, Jonathan Remis, Jeremy J. Axelrod, Hang Cheng, Eric S. Cooper, Ian K. Hicklin, et al. “Laser Phase Plate Improves Structure Determination of Small Proteins by Cryo-EM.” <i>Science</i>. AAAS, 2026. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh0665\">https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh0665</a>."},"language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"month":"07","researchdata_availability":"yes","date_published":"2026-07-09T00:00:00Z","date_updated":"2026-08-05T09:27:38Z"}