Polymorph identification and crystal structure determination by a combined crystal structure prediction and transmission electron microscopy approach.

Electron diffraction offers advantages over X-ray based methods for crystal structure determination because it can be applied to sub-micron sized crystallites, and picogram quantities of material. For molecular organic species, however, crystal structure determination with electron diffraction is hindered by rapid crystal deterioration in the electron beam, limiting the amount of diffraction data that can be collected, and by the effect of dynamical scattering on reflection intensities. Automated electron diffraction tomography provides one possible solution. We demonstrate here, however, an alternative approach in which a set of putative crystal structures of the compound of interest is generated by crystal structure prediction methods and electron diffraction is used to determine which of these putative structures is experimentally observed. This approach enables the advantages of electron diffraction to be exploited, while avoiding the need to obtain large amounts of diffraction data or accurate reflection intensities. We demonstrate the application of the methodology to the pharmaceutical compounds paracetamol, scyllo-inositol and theophylline.

Determination of the crystal structure of a new polymorph of theophylline.

A new approach to crystal structure determination, combining crystal structure prediction and transmission electron microscopy, was used to identify a potential new crystal phase of the pharmaceutical compound theophylline. The crystal structure was determined despite the new polymorph occurring as a minor component in a mixture with Form II of theophylline, at a concentration below the limits of detection of analytical methods routinely used for pharmaceutical characterisation. Detection and characterisation of crystallites of this new form were achieved with transmission electron microscopy, exploiting the combination of high magnification imaging and electron diffraction measurements. A plausible crystal structure was identified by indexing experimental electron-diffraction patterns from a single crystallite of the new polymorph against a reference set of putative crystal structures of theophylline generated by global lattice energy minimisation calculations.

Significant progress in predicting the crystal structures of small organic molecules--a report on the fourth blind test.

We report on the organization and outcome of the fourth blind test of crystal structure prediction, an international collaborative project organized to evaluate the present state in computational methods of predicting the crystal structures of small organic molecules. There were 14 research groups which took part, using a variety of methods to generate and rank the most likely crystal structures for four target systems: three single-component crystal structures and a 1:1 cocrystal. Participants were challenged to predict the crystal structures of the four systems, given only their molecular diagrams, while the recently determined but as-yet unpublished crystal structures were withheld by an independent referee. Three predictions were allowed for each system. The results demonstrate a dramatic improvement in rates of success over previous blind tests; in total, there were 13 successful predictions and, for each of the four targets, at least two groups correctly predicted the observed crystal structure. The successes include one participating group who correctly predicted all four crystal structures as their first ranked choice, albeit at a considerable computational expense. The results reflect important improvements in modelling methods and suggest that, at least for the small and fairly rigid types of molecules included in this blind test, such calculations can be constructively applied to help understand crystallization and polymorphism of organic molecules.

Molecular Polarization Effects on the Relative Energies of the Real and Putative Crystal Structures of Valine.

The computer-generation of the crystal structures of the α-amino acid valine is used as a challenging test of lattice energy modeling methods for crystal structure prediction of flexible polar organic molecules and, specifically, to examine the importance of molecular polarization on calculated relative energies. Total calculated crystal energies, which combine atom-atom model potential calculations of intermolecular interactions with density functional theory intramolecular energies, do not effectively distinguish the real (known) crystal structures from the rest of the low energy computer-generated alternatives when the molecular electrostatic models are derived from isolated molecule calculations. However, we find that introducing a simple model for the bulk crystalline environment when calculating the molecular energy and electron density distribution leads to important changes in relative total crystal energies and correctly distinguishes the observed crystal structures from the set of computer-generated possibilities. This study highlights the importance of polarization of the molecular charge distribution in crystal structure prediction calculations, especially for polar flexible molecules, and suggests a computationally inexpensive approach to include its effect in lattice energy calculations.