The analysis of biological networks starts with the visualization of the networks. This can be seen as a form of an exploratory analysis. The main aim of an effective visualization is to highlight key structural properties of a network. Besides the connectivity of the nodes, there is a large variety of structural features of a network that can instead be exploited for an effective visualization. For example, modules, shortest paths or hierarchical levels.
We developed an R package called NetBioV (network biology visualization) that provides many easy to use functions, layout styles and color schemes to visualize biological networks
The tutorial is organized as follows:
• Introduction of biological networks
• Overview of standard graph layout algorithms
• Overview of visualization software
• Network visualization using R
• Visualization of biological networks using NetBioV, emphasizing structural components:
– Global view
– Modular view
– Hierarchical view
• Conclusions
