XDXD: End-to-end crystal structure determination with low resolution X-ray diffraction
Zhao, Jiale, Liu, Cong, Zhang, Yuxuan, Gong, Chengyue, Zhang, Zhenyi, Jin, Shifeng, Liu, Zhenyu
–arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence
Determining crystal structures from X-ray diffraction data is fundamental across diverse scientific fields, yet remains a significant challenge when data is limited to low resolution. While recent deep learning models have made breakthroughs in solving the crystallographic phase problem, the resulting low-resolution electron density maps are often ambiguous and difficult to interpret. To overcome this critical bottleneck, we introduce XDXD, to our knowledge, the first end-to-end deep learning framework to determine a complete atomic model directly from low-resolution single-crystal X-ray diffraction data. Our diffusion-based generative model bypasses the need for manual map interpretation, producing chemically plausible crystal structures conditioned on the diffraction pattern. We demonstrate that XDXD achieves a 70.4\% match rate for structures with data limited to 2.0~Å resolution, with a root-mean-square error (RMSE) below 0.05. Evaluated on a benchmark of 24,000 experimental structures, our model proves to be robust and accurate. Furthermore, a case study on small peptides highlights the model's potential for extension to more complex systems, paving the way for automated structure solution in previously intractable cases.
arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence
Oct-22-2025
- Country:
- Asia > China
- Europe
- Czechia > South Moravian Region
- Brno (0.04)
- Netherlands > North Holland
- Amsterdam (0.04)
- United Kingdom > England
- Oxfordshire > Oxford (0.04)
- Czechia > South Moravian Region
- North America > United States
- Texas > Travis County > Austin (0.04)
- Genre:
- Research Report (0.50)
- Industry:
- Technology: