- Am I the only one increasingly annoyed by cryo-EM papers not showing *any* experimental density in figures? Sometimes not even in the supplementary material??
- Journals really need to enforce some set of minimal standards.
- A rule I follow when reviewing cryo-EM manuscripts: if a claim relies on the orientation or interactions of a side chain, the evidence supporting the claim (ie the map density) must be shown. In general, reviewers are responsible for ensuring claims in manuscripts are supported by data.Jan 30, 2026 14:04
- Same here.
- Interestingly when I reviewed a crystallographic paper I said exactly this and was told it was not the 'norm' but they did do it and the electron density was good. Maybe with historically higher resolution it was needed less in MX but it can't hurt
- In crystallography the model is (supposed to be) the best explanation of the data (model refined against diffraction) while in cryo-EM the map is (supposed to be) the best explanation of the data. In cryo-EM its particularly easy to build a model that isn't supported by the data.
- It's those (supposed to be)'s that worry me! This is my favorite example in MX of where things can go wrong www.nature.com/articles/nsm...
