Multi-scale Graph Autoregressive Modeling: Molecular Property Prediction via Next Token Prediction

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Hauptverfasser: Jiang, Zhuoyang, Min, Yaosen, Jin, Peiran, Chen, Lei
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Jiang, Zhuoyang
Min, Yaosen
Jin, Peiran
Chen, Lei
author_facet Jiang, Zhuoyang
Min, Yaosen
Jin, Peiran
Chen, Lei
contents We present Connection-Aware Motif Sequencing (CamS), a graph-to-sequence representation that enables decoder-only Transformers to learn molecular graphs via standard next-token prediction (NTP). For molecular property prediction, SMILES-based NTP scales well but lacks explicit topology, whereas graph-native masked modeling captures connectivity but risks disrupting the pivotal chemical details (e.g., activity cliffs). CamS bridges this gap by serializing molecular graphs into structure-rich causal sequences. CamS first mines data-driven connection-aware motifs. It then serializes motifs via scaffold-rooted breadth-first search (BFS) to establish a stable core-to-periphery order. Crucially, CamS enables hierarchical modeling by concatenating sequences from fine to coarse motif scales, allowing the model to condition global scaffolds on dense, uncorrupted local structural evidence. We instantiate CamS-LLaMA by pre-training a vanilla LLaMA backbone on CamS sequences. It achieves state-of-the-art performance on MoleculeNet and the activity-cliff benchmark MoleculeACE, outperforming both SMILES-based language models and strong graph baselines. Interpretability analysis confirms that our multi-scale causal serialization effectively drives attention toward cliff-determining differences.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_02530
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multi-scale Graph Autoregressive Modeling: Molecular Property Prediction via Next Token Prediction
Jiang, Zhuoyang
Min, Yaosen
Jin, Peiran
Chen, Lei
Machine Learning
Quantitative Methods
We present Connection-Aware Motif Sequencing (CamS), a graph-to-sequence representation that enables decoder-only Transformers to learn molecular graphs via standard next-token prediction (NTP). For molecular property prediction, SMILES-based NTP scales well but lacks explicit topology, whereas graph-native masked modeling captures connectivity but risks disrupting the pivotal chemical details (e.g., activity cliffs). CamS bridges this gap by serializing molecular graphs into structure-rich causal sequences. CamS first mines data-driven connection-aware motifs. It then serializes motifs via scaffold-rooted breadth-first search (BFS) to establish a stable core-to-periphery order. Crucially, CamS enables hierarchical modeling by concatenating sequences from fine to coarse motif scales, allowing the model to condition global scaffolds on dense, uncorrupted local structural evidence. We instantiate CamS-LLaMA by pre-training a vanilla LLaMA backbone on CamS sequences. It achieves state-of-the-art performance on MoleculeNet and the activity-cliff benchmark MoleculeACE, outperforming both SMILES-based language models and strong graph baselines. Interpretability analysis confirms that our multi-scale causal serialization effectively drives attention toward cliff-determining differences.
title Multi-scale Graph Autoregressive Modeling: Molecular Property Prediction via Next Token Prediction
topic Machine Learning
Quantitative Methods
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02530