Dittrich Birger, Breznikar Rok, Santarossa Gianluca, Whitfield Pamela, Moebitz Henrik
Novartis Campus, Novartis Pharma AG, Postfach, Basel CH-4002, Switzerland.
Excelsus Structural Solutions, Parkstrasse 1, Villigen CH-5234, Switzerland.
IUCrJ. 2025 Jul 1;12(Pt 4):472-487. doi: 10.1107/S2052252525004543.
There is a need for fast, efficient and accurate solid-state structure optimization for imprecise crystal structures (augmentation') for subsequent property prediction in the pharmaceutical industry. Crystal structures from single-crystal X-ray, 3D electron or powder diffraction are widely available but require augmentation to the same quality level for comparative studies. Properties can be best calculated when the level of theory is alike and the accuracy, as well as the precision, are high. Moreover, the size of molecules and the complexity of structures encountered in pharmaceutical research are increasing. Efficient procedures are thus required that can also treat structures with disorder and several molecules in the asymmetric unit of the unit cell. Hence, we investigated whether
molecule-in-cluster' (MIC) computations [Dittrich et al. (2020). CrystEngComm 22, 7420-7431] can reach the accuracy of full-periodic (FP) computations. Selected quantum mechanical methods are assessed. The evaluation criterion is how well the structures of 22 very low temperature high-quality structures are reproduced. Computational efficiency is also considered. A novel approach to evaluating the accuracy of quantum mechanical predictions is enforcing computed structure-specific restraints in crystallographic least-squares refinements. To complement this approach, root mean square Cartesian displacements of computed and experimental structures were also compared. Analysis shows that (a) MIC DFT-D computations in a quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM:MM) framework provide improved restraints and coordinates over earlier MIC GFN2-xTB computations, (b) increasing QM basis-set size in MIC QM:MM does not systematically improve computations, and (c) the choice of DFT functional is less important than the choice of the basis set. Overall, MIC computations are an accurate and computationally efficient tool for solid-state structure optimization that can match FP computations to augment experimental structures.
在制药行业中,为了进行后续的性质预测,对于不精确的晶体结构(“增强”),需要快速、高效且准确的固态结构优化。来自单晶X射线、3D电子或粉末衍射的晶体结构广泛可得,但为了进行比较研究,需要将其增强到相同的质量水平。当理论水平相似且准确性和精度都很高时,性质才能得到最佳计算。此外,制药研究中遇到的分子大小和结构复杂性正在增加。因此,需要高效的程序,这些程序还可以处理具有无序性的结构以及晶胞不对称单元中的多个分子。因此,我们研究了“簇中分子”(MIC)计算[Dittrich等人(2020年)。《晶体工程通讯》22,7420 - 7431]是否能够达到全周期(FP)计算的准确性。对选定的量子力学方法进行了评估。评估标准是22个非常低温高质量结构的结构被重现的程度。还考虑了计算效率。一种评估量子力学预测准确性的新方法是在晶体学最小二乘精修中强制实施计算得到的结构特定约束。为了补充这种方法,还比较了计算结构和实验结构的笛卡尔坐标均方根位移。分析表明:(a)在量子力学/分子力学(QM:MM)框架下的MIC DFT - D计算比早期的MIC GFN2 - xTB计算提供了更好的约束和坐标;(b)在MIC QM:MM中增加QM基组大小并不能系统地改善计算;(c)DFT泛函的选择不如基组的选择重要。总体而言,MIC计算是一种准确且计算高效的固态结构优化工具,可与FP计算相匹配以增强实验结构。