sbgntikz-a TikZ library to draw SBGN maps

Abstract

Summary: The systems biology graphical notation (SBGN) has emerged as the main standard to represent biological maps graphically. It comprises three complementary languages: Process Description, for detailed biomolecular processes; Activity Flow, for influences of biological activities and Entity Relationship, for independent relations shared among biological entities. On the other hand, TikZ is one of the most commonly used package to 'program' graphics within TEX/LATEX. Here, we present sbgntikz, a TikZ library that allows drawing and customizing SBGN maps directly into TEX/LATEX documents, using the TikZ language. sbgntikz supports all glyphs of the three SBGN languages, and offers options that facilitate the drawing of complex glyph assembly within TikZ. Furthermore, sbgntikz is provided together with a converter that allows transforming any SBGN map stored under the SBGN Markup Language into a TikZ picture, or rendering it directly into a PDF file.

Availability and implementation: sbgntikz, the SBGN-ML to sbgntikz converter, as well as a complete documentation can be freely downloaded from https://github.com/Adrienrougny/sbgntikz/. The library and the converter are compatible with all recent operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, and all common Linux distributions.

Supplementary information: Supplementary material is available at Bioinformatics online.