Section: Software

TubuleJ software - A plugin for automatic straightening, filtering and 3D reconstruction of microtubule cryo-EM projection views

Participants : Charles Kervrann, Sophie Blestel.

The TubuleJ software written in java has been developed to analyze microtubule structures and helical structures in 2D cryo-electron microscope images. The software enables to straighten curved microtubule images by estimating automatically points locations on the microtubule axis. The local center estimation method relies on microtubule cylindrical shape analyzed in the Fourier domain. A user friendly interface is provided to filter straight fiber images by selecting manually the layer lines of interest in the Fourier domain. Third, this plugin can be used to generate a set of 2D projection views from a single microtubule projection view and a few parameters of this microtubule structure. These projection views are then back projected, by using for example the imod plugin of ImageJ , to reconstruct the 3D microtubule.