Layout of anatomical structures and blood vessels based on the foundational model of anatomy.

We present a method for the layout of anatomical structures and blood vessels based on information from the Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA). Our approach integrates a novel vascular layout into the hierarchical treemap representation of anatomy as used in ApiNATOMY. Our method aims to improve the comprehension of complex anatomical and vascular data by providing readable visual representations.

Drug-target identification in COVID-19 disease mechanisms using computational systems biology approaches.

Introduction: The COVID-19 Disease Map project is a large-scale community effort uniting 277 scientists from 130 Institutions around the globe. We use high-quality, mechanistic content describing SARS-CoV-2-host interactions and develop interoperable bioinformatic pipelines for novel target identification and drug repurposing.

Methods: Extensive community work allowed an impressive step forward in building interfaces between Systems Biology tools and platforms.

Towards a hybrid user interface for the visual exploration of large biomolecular networks using virtual reality.

Biomolecular networks, including genome-scale metabolic models (GSMMs), assemble the knowledge regarding the biological processes that happen inside specific organisms in a way that allows for analysis, simulation, and exploration. With the increasing availability of genome annotations and the development of powerful reconstruction tools, biomolecular networks continue to grow ever larger. While visual exploration can facilitate the understanding of such networks, the network sizes represent a major challenge for current visualisation systems.

Design considerations for representing systems biology information with the Systems Biology Graphical Notation.

Visual representations are commonly used to explore, analyse, and communicate information and knowledge in systems biology and beyond. Such visualisations not only need to be accurate but should also be aesthetically pleasing and informative. Using the example of the Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN) we will investigate design considerations for graphically presenting information from systems biology, in particular regarding the use of glyphs for types of information, the style of graph layout for network representation, and the concept of bricks for visual network creation.

COVID19 Disease Map, a computational knowledge repository of virus-host interaction mechanisms.

We need to effectively combine the knowledge from surging literature with complex datasets to propose mechanistic models of SARS-CoV-2 infection, improving data interpretation and predicting key targets of intervention. Here, we describe a large-scale community effort to build an open access, interoperable and computable repository of COVID-19 molecular mechanisms. The COVID-19 Disease Map (C19DMap) is a graphical, interactive representation of disease-relevant molecular mechanisms linking many knowledge sources.

Visual exploration of large metabolic models.

Motivation: Large metabolic models, including genome-scale metabolic models, are nowadays common in systems biology, biotechnology and pharmacology. They typically contain thousands of metabolites and reactions and therefore methods for their automatic visualization and interactive exploration can facilitate a better understanding of these models.

Results: We developed a novel method for the visual exploration of large metabolic models and implemented it in LMME (Large Metabolic Model Explorer), an add-on for the biological network analysis tool VANTED.

Streamline pair selection for comparative flow field visualization.

Fluid dynamics simulation is often repeated under varying conditions. This leads to a generation of large amounts of results, which are difficult to compare. To compare results under different conditions, it is effective to overlap the streamlines generated from each condition in a single three-dimensional space.

Specifications of standards in systems and synthetic biology: status and developments in 2020.

This special issue of the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics presents papers related to the 10th COMBINE meeting together with the annual update of COMBINE standards in systems and synthetic biology.

Systems biology graphical notation markup language (SBGNML) version 0.3.

This document defines Version 0.3 Markup Language (ML) support for the Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN), a set of three complementary visual languages developed for biochemists, modelers, and computer scientists. SBGN aims at representing networks of biochemical interactions in a standard, unambiguous way to foster efficient and accurate representation, visualization, storage, exchange, and reuse of information on all kinds of biological knowledge, from gene regulation, to metabolism, to cellular signaling.

OntoPlot: A Novel Visualisation for Non-hierarchical Associations in Large Ontologies.

Ontologies are formal representations of concepts and complex relationships among them. They have been widely used to capture comprehensive domain knowledge in areas such as biology and medicine, where large and complex ontologies can contain hundreds of thousands of concepts. Especially due to the large size of ontologies, visualisation is useful for authoring, exploring and understanding their underlying data.

Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Process Description language Level 1 Version 2.0.

The Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN) is an international community effort that aims to standardise the visualisation of pathways and networks for readers with diverse scientific backgrounds as well as to support an efficient and accurate exchange of biological knowledge between disparate research communities, industry, and other players in systems biology. SBGN comprises the three languages Entity Relationship, Activity Flow, and Process Description (PD) to cover biological and biochemical systems at distinct levels of detail. PD is closest to metabolic and regulatory pathways found in biological literature and textbooks.

Genome-scale metabolic modeling of responses to polymyxins in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa often causes multidrug-resistant infections in immunocompromised patients, and polymyxins are often used as the last-line therapy. Alarmingly, resistance to polymyxins has been increasingly reported worldwide recently. To rescue this last-resort class of antibiotics, it is necessary to systematically understand how P.

Information Visualization for Biological Data.

Visualization is a powerful method to present and explore a large amount of data. It is increasingly important in the life sciences and is used for analyzing different types of biological data, such as structural information, high-throughput data, and biochemical networks. This chapter gives a brief introduction to visualization methods for bioinformatics, presents two commonly used techniques in detail, and discusses a graphical standard for biological networks and cellular processes.

Toward Community Standards and Software for Whole-Cell Modeling.

Objective: Whole-cell (WC) modeling is a promising tool for biological research, bioengineering, and medicine. However, substantial work remains to create accurate comprehensive models of complex cells.

Methods: We organized the 2015 Whole-Cell Modeling Summer School to teach WC modeling and evaluate the need for new WC modeling standards and software by recoding a recently published WC model in the Systems Biology Markup Language.

Metabolomics, Standards, and Metabolic Modeling for Synthetic Biology in Plants.

Life on earth depends on dynamic chemical transformations that enable cellular functions, including electron transfer reactions, as well as synthesis and degradation of biomolecules. Biochemical reactions are coordinated in metabolic pathways that interact in a complex way to allow adequate regulation. Biotechnology, food, biofuel, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries are highly interested in metabolic engineering as an enabling technology of synthetic biology to exploit cells for the controlled production of metabolites of interest.

Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Activity Flow language Level 1 Version 1.2.

The Systems Biological Graphical Notation (SBGN) is an international community effort for standardized graphical representations of biological pathways and networks. The goal of SBGN is to provide unambiguous pathway and network maps for readers with different scientific backgrounds as well as to support efficient and accurate exchange of biological knowledge between different research communities, industry, and other players in systems biology. Three SBGN languages, Process Description (PD), Entity Relationship (ER) and Activity Flow (AF), allow for the representation of different aspects of biological and biochemical systems at different levels of detail.

Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Entity Relationship language Level 1 Version 2.

The Systems Biological Graphical Notation (SBGN) is an international community effort for standardized graphical representations of biological pathways and networks. The goal of SBGN is to provide unambiguous pathway and network maps for readers with different scientific backgrounds as well as to support efficient and accurate exchange of biological knowledge between different research communities, industry, and other players in systems biology. Three SBGN languages, Process Description (PD), Entity Relationship (ER) and Activity Flow (AF), allow for the representation of different aspects of biological and biochemical systems at different levels of detail.

Path2Models: large-scale generation of computational models from biochemical pathway maps.

Background: Systems biology projects and omics technologies have led to a growing number of biochemical pathway models and reconstructions. However, the majority of these models are still created de novo, based on literature mining and the manual processing of pathway data.

Results: To increase the efficiency of model creation, the Path2Models project has automatically generated mathematical models from pathway representations using a suite of freely available software.

Translation of SBGN maps: Process Description to Activity Flow.

Background: The Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN) provides standard graphical languages for representing cellular processes, interactions, and biological networks. SBGN consists of three languages: Process Descriptions (PD), Entity Relationships (ER), and Activity Flows (AF). Maps in SBGN PD are often large, detailed, and complex, therefore there is a need for a simplified illustration.

Conversion of KEGG metabolic pathways to SBGN maps including automatic layout.

Background: Biologists make frequent use of databases containing large and complex biological networks. One popular database is the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) which uses its own graphical representation and manual layout for pathways. While some general drawing conventions exist for biological networks, arbitrary graphical representations are very common.

OPTIMAS-DW: a comprehensive transcriptomics, metabolomics, ionomics, proteomics and phenomics data resource for maize.

Background: Maize is a major crop plant, grown for human and animal nutrition, as well as a renewable resource for bioenergy. When looking at the problems of limited fossil fuels, the growth of the world's population or the world's climate change, it is important to find ways to increase the yield and biomass of maize and to study how it reacts to specific abiotic and biotic stress situations. Within the OPTIMAS systems biology project maize plants were grown under a large set of controlled stress conditions, phenotypically characterised and plant material was harvested to analyse the effect of specific environmental conditions or developmental stages.

VANTED v2: a framework for systems biology applications.

Background: Experimental datasets are becoming larger and increasingly complex, spanning different data domains, thereby expanding the requirements for respective tool support for their analysis. Networks provide a basis for the integration, analysis and visualization of multi-omics experimental datasets.

Results: Here we present VANTED (version 2), a framework for systems biology applications, which comprises a comprehensive set of seven main tasks.