Integrated Visualization of Gene Network and Ontology Applying a Hierarchical Graph Visualization Technique

A gene network is constructed with genes as nodes, and interactions between genes as edges so as to reveal unknown gene functions and relationship. However, nodes and edges of gene networks are usually very numerous. Because of that, it may be difficult to understand relations between genomic functions and gene-gene interactions, if it is visualized by traditional techniques. This paper presents our technique on visualization of gene networks and gene ontology(GO), which summarizes gene functions and attributes. The technique represents the functions defined by GO as colors of nodes, and bundles edges depending on the gene functions to ease visual complication of the network.