gganatogram: An R package for modular visualisation of anatograms and tissues based on ggplot2

Area of Science:

• Biological visualization
• Bioinformatics
• Computational biology

Background:

• Displaying data on anatomical structures aids tissue-related information observation.
• Existing web-based tools for gene expression lack modularity and are limited to non-genetic disciplines.
• Manual creation of anatomical visualizations requires expertise in both art and anatomy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce gganatogram, an R package for creating modular species anatograms.
• To provide a tool that combines the ggplot2 grammar with Expression Atlas anatograms for easy visualization.
• To facilitate the reproducible plotting of various biological data types across different tissues and species.

Main Methods:

• Developed an R package, gganatogram, leveraging ggplot2's graphical grammar.
• Integrated publicly available anatograms from the Expression Atlas.
• Utilized a simple data frame input for tissue name, group, color, and value for visualization.

Main Results:

• gganatogram allows for quick, easy, modular, and reproducible generation of anatograms.
• The package supports visualization of gene expression, pharmacokinetics, and bacterial load across selected tissues.
• Includes 5 highly annotated organisms (human/mouse male/female, cell anatogram) and 24 additional species.

Conclusions:

• gganatogram offers a versatile tool for visualizing biological data on anatomical structures across diverse species.
• The package enhances reproducibility and ease of use for researchers in biological sciences.
• Community contributions for additional anatograms are welcomed for future package development.