PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - C.O.S. Sorzano
AU  - F. de Isidro-Gómez
AU  - E. Fernández-Giménez
AU  - D. Herreros
AU  - S. Marco
AU  - J.M. Carazo
AU  - C. Messaoudi
TI  - Improvements on marker-free images alignment for electron tomography
AID  - 10.1101/2020.05.22.110445
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.05.22.110445
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/24/2020.05.22.110445.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/24/2020.05.22.110445.full
AB  - Electron tomography is a technique to obtain three-dimensional structural information of samples. However, the technique is limited by shifts occurring during acquisition that need to be corrected before the reconstruction process. In 2009, we proposed an approach for post-acquisition alignment of tilt series images. This approach was marker-free, based on patch tracking and integrated in free software. Here, we present improvements to the method to make it more reliable, stable and accurate. In addition, we modified the image formation model underlying the alignment procedure to include different deformations occurring during acquisition. We propose a new way to correct these computed deformations to obtain reconstructions with reduced artifacts. The new approach has demonstrated to improve the quality of the final 3D reconstruction, giving access to better defined structures for different transmission electron tomography methods: resin embedded STEM-tomography and cryo-TEM tomography. The method is freely available in TomoJ software.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.