Bioinformatics Vol. 18 no. 90001 2002
Pages S321-S328
© 2002 Oxford University Press
PseudoViewer: automatic visualization of RNA pseudoknots
1 Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Inha University, Inchon 402-751, South Korea
2 Department of Automation Engineering,
Inha University, Inchon 402-751, South Korea
Received on January 19, 2002
; revised on March 29, 2002
; accepted on March 29, 2002
Motivation: Several algorithms have been developed for drawing RNA secondary structures, however none of these can be used to draw RNA pseudoknot structures. In the sense of graph theory, a drawing of RNA secondary structures is a tree, whereas a drawing of RNA pseudoknots is a graph with inner cycles within a pseudoknot as well as possible outer cycles formed between a pseudoknot and other structural elements. Thus, RNA pseudoknots are more difficult to visualize than RNA secondary structures. Since no automatic method for drawing RNA pseudoknots exists, visualizing RNA pseudoknots relies on significant amount of manual work and does not yield satisfactory results. The task of visualizing RNA pseudoknots by hand becomes more challenging as the size and complexity of the RNA pseudoknots increase.
Results: We have developed a new representation and an algorithm for drawing H-type pseudoknots with RNA secondary structures. Compared to existing representations of H-type pseudoknots, the new representation ensures uniform and clear drawings with no edge crossing for any H-type pseudoknots. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first algorithm for automatically drawing RNA pseudoknots with RNA secondary structures. The algorithm has been implemented in a Java program, which can be executed on any computing system. Experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm generates an aesthetically pleasing drawing of all H-type pseudoknots. The results have also shown that the drawing has high readability, enabling the user to quickly and easily recognize the whole RNA structure as well as the pseudoknots themselves.
Availability: All algorithms are available on request from the corresponding author.
Contact: khan{at}inha.ac.kr
Keywords: RNA structure; H-type pseudoknot; visualization, graph drawing.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
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