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Cryo-EM (cryo-electron microscopy)

Cryo-EM is a way to take very sharp 3D pictures of tiny molecules like proteins. The molecules are frozen so fast that they hold their natural shape, and then an electron microscope images them. It was used to see what the GLP-1 receptor looks like when it is switched on.

For experts

Cryo-electron microscopy freezes biomolecules in vitrified water and images them with an electron beam, and image processing that analyses and merges fuzzy two-dimensional images reveals a sharp three-dimensional structure; Dubochet, Frank and Henderson shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for its development. Zhang et al. (2017) used cryo-EM to report the structure of the GLP-1-activated GLP-1 receptor bound to the G protein Gs at 4.1 Å global resolution (PDB 5VAI); they used the rabbit receptor, which is 92% identical to the human one.

Sources (4)

  1. 01The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 - Press release (cryo-electron microscopy)Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org · 2017-10-04 · accessed 2026-09-29
  2. 02Cryo-EM structure of the activated GLP-1 receptor in complex with a G proteinNature (indexed in PubMed, NCBI/NLM) · 2017-06-08 · accessed 2026-09-29
  3. 03Cryo-EM structure of the activated GLP-1 receptor in complex with a G protein (full text)Nature (PubMed Central, NCBI/NLM) · 2017-06-08 · accessed 2026-09-29
  4. 045VAI: Cryo-EM structure of the activated Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor in complex with G proteinRCSB Protein Data Bank · 2017-05-24 · accessed 2026-09-29