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AUTOMATED PARTICLE CORRESPONDENCE AND ACCURATE TILT-AXIS DETECTION IN TILTED-IMAGE PAIRS

M. SHATSKY*, P. ARBELAEZ*, B.G. HAN, D. TYPKE, S. BRENNER, J. MALIK AND R. GLAESER

JOURNAL OF STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY, 2014

Abstract

Tilted electron microscope images are routinely collected for an ab initio structure reconstruction as a part of the Random Conical Tilt (RCT) or Orthogonal Tilt Reconstruction (OTR) methods, as well as for various applications using the “free-hand” procedure. These procedures all require identification of particle pairs in two corresponding images as well as accurate estimation of the tilt-axis used to rotate the electron microscope (EM) grid. Here we present a computational approach, PCT (particle correspondence from tilted pairs), based on tilt-invariant context and projection matching that addresses both problems. The method benefits from treating the two problems as a single optimization task. It automatically finds corresponding particle pairs and accurately computes tilt-axis direction even in the cases when EM grid is not perfectly planar.