# Three-Dimensional Alignment of Density Maps in Cryo-Electron Microscopy

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.08027 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08027/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 16 Jun 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Alignment of Density Maps in Wasserstein Distance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.12310/) (2023)
- [Robust Point Matching with Distance Profiles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.12641/) (2023)
- [Deep Neural-network Prior for Orbit Recovery from Method of Moments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14604/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A common task in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) data processing is to compare three-dimensional density maps of macromolecules. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for aligning three-dimensional density maps that exploits common lines between projection images of the maps. The algorithm is fully automatic and handles rotations, reflections (handedness), and translations between the maps. In addition, the algorithm is applicable to any type of molecular symmetry without requiring any information regarding the symmetry of the maps. We evaluate our alignment algorithm on publicly available density maps, demonstrating its accuracy and efficiency. The algorithm is available at https://github.com/ShkolniskyLab/emalign.