Section: New Results

Symmetry Detection Method

Participants : Silvia Dias Pinto, Sergei Grudinin.

We developed an algorithm for automatic recognition of the point group symmetry in electron density maps of biological objects. More precisely, the method operates on cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryoEM) data, which typically contain 3D structures of multi-domain proteins and their complexes. We represent the shape using a spherical harmonic decomposition and then operate on the expansion coefficients to quantify the structural symmetry thanks to a mismatch function. Overall, we developed new mathematical and computational frameworks for symmetry detection using the polynomial expansion approach.