[3dem] Contamination guessing

[Fislage, Marcus]

Dear all,

I am working on a sample that is purified from plants and we are struggling with one particular contamination which:
1) is very abundant on our micrographs and
2) somehow not willing to be purified out.

So far we have absolutely no idea on what it is and I thought that one of you might have seen something like this and knows what it is. Any good guess would be welcome.
Attached you can find three 2D classes that are comprised of this thing.
The box size is: 340 px = 428 A
The particles mask is 360 A
The length of this contamination can be incredibly long spanning distances of 30 nm to 400 nm.
The diameter seems to be ~10 nm and the distance between the repeats is ~4-8 nm

Thanks for any hints
Cheers
Marcus


Marcus Fislage, PhD

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
Columbia University
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Lab of Joachim Frank
New York, NY

email address: mf2944 at cumc.columbia.edu
Phone: 212.305.9524
Fax: 212.305.9500
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