Viral Infection at High Magnification: 3D Electron Microscopy Methods to Analyze the Architecture of Infected Cells
by
Inés Romero-Brey 1,*
and Ralf Bartenschlager 1,2,*
Inés Romero-Brey 1,* and Ralf Bartenschlager 1,2,*
1
Department of Infectious Diseases, Molecular Virology, Heidelberg University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 345, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
2
German Center for Infection Research, Heidelberg University, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Michael Laue
Viruses 2015, 7(12), 6316-6345; https://doi.org/10.3390/v7122940
Received: 28 July 2015 / Revised: 16 October 2015 / Accepted: 16 November 2015 / Published: 3 December 2015
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electron Microscopy in Virus Diagnostics and Research)
As obligate intracellular parasites, viruses need to hijack their cellular hosts and reprogram their machineries in order to replicate their genomes and produce new virions. For the direct visualization of the different steps of a viral life cycle (attachment, entry, replication, assembly and egress) electron microscopy (EM) methods are extremely helpful. While conventional EM has given important information about virus-host cell interactions, the development of three-dimensional EM (3D-EM) approaches provides unprecedented insights into how viruses remodel the intracellular architecture of the host cell. During the last years several 3D-EM methods have been developed. Here we will provide a description of the main approaches and examples of innovative applications.
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Keywords:
transmission electron microscopy; electron tomography; serial sectioning; scanning transmission electron microscopy; serial block face-scanning electron microscopy; focus ion beam-scanning electron microscopy; virus-host interactions; cell membranes; ultrastructure; cryo-EM
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Romero-Brey, I.; Bartenschlager, R. Viral Infection at High Magnification: 3D Electron Microscopy Methods to Analyze the Architecture of Infected Cells. Viruses 2015, 7, 6316-6345.
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