3D Structure from 2D Microscopy images using Deep Learning

Abstract

Understanding the structure of a protein complex is crucial in determining its function. However, retrieving accurate 3D structures from microscopy images is highly challenging, particularly as many imaging modalities are two-dimensional. Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence have been applied to this problem, primarily using voxel based approaches to analyse sets of electron microscopy images. Here we present a deep learning solution for reconstructing the protein complexes from a number of 2D single molecule localization microscopy images, with the solution being completely unconstrained. Our convolutional neural network coupled with a differentiable renderer predicts pose and derives a single structure. After training, the network is discarded, with the output of this method being a structural model which