Reconstructions of asymmetric objects computed by electron tomography are distorted due to the absence of information, usually in an angular range from 60 to 90°, which produces a “missing wedge” in Fourier space. These distortions often interfere with the interpretation of results and thus limit biological ultrastructural information which can be obtained. We have attempted to use the Method of Projections Onto Convex Sets (POCS) for restoring the missing information. In POCS, use is made of the fact that known constraints such as positivity, spatial boundedness or an upper energy bound define convex sets in function space. Enforcement of such constraints takes place by iterating a sequence of function-space projections, starting from the original reconstruction, onto the convex sets, until a function in the intersection of all sets is found. First applications of this technique in the field of electron microscopy have been promising.To test POCS on experimental data, we have artificially reduced the range of an existing projection set of a selectively stained Golgi apparatus from ±60° to ±50°, and computed the reconstruction from the reduced set (51 projections). The specimen was prepared from a bull frog spinal ganglion as described by Lindsey and Ellisman and imaged in the high-voltage electron microscope.
Maximal separation theorems for convex sets