Visualization of Biomolecular Networks’ Comparison on Cytoscape

Similarities and dissimilarities between biomolecular networks cannot be intuitively recognized even after the development of several comparison algorithms because of the lack of visualization tools. In this paper, an integrated tool kit named Biomolecular Network Match (BNMatch) is designed and developed based on Cytoscape—a popular and open-source tool for analyzing and visualizing networks. BNMatch integrates the comparison of the outputs of algorithms used for processing biomolecular networks and expresses the matching data between them by defining similar vertices and links with similar attributes. Moreover, in order to maintain consistency, their counterparts in other networks change when the nodes and edges in one of the compared networks are changed. It becomes easy for users to analyze similar networks by invoking comparison algorithms and visualizing the matching data between the networks using BNMatch.