chord diagram
Definition
A chord diagram is a circular visualization technique that displays relationships and flows between multiple entities arranged around a circle's perimeter. Each entity is represented as an arc segment, with ribbons or chords connecting related entities across the circle's interior. The width of each chord typically represents the strength or magnitude of the relationship. In biological research, chord diagrams excel at revealing complex many-to-many relationships, such as gene-disease associations, protein-protein interactions across cellular compartments, or metabolic pathway interconnections. They are particularly valuable for identifying hub entities with numerous connections and for visualizing the relative importance of different relationships within a system.
Visualize chord diagram in Nodes Bio
Researchers can use Nodes Bio to transform chord diagram insights into interactive network graphs where circular relationships become explorable node-edge structures. This allows drilling down into specific gene-disease associations, expanding protein interaction clusters, or overlaying additional pathway data. The network format enables dynamic filtering, community detection, and integration with other omics datasets that chord diagrams cannot easily accommodate.
Visualization Ideas:
- Gene-disease association networks with weighted edges representing connection strength
- Multi-tissue protein interaction networks showing compartment-specific relationships
- Metabolic pathway cross-talk networks displaying substrate and enzyme sharing between pathways
Example Use Case
A cancer genomics team investigating tumor heterogeneity uses a chord diagram to visualize how 50 mutated genes associate with 12 different cancer hallmarks across patient samples. The diagram reveals that TP53 and KRAS mutations connect to multiple hallmarks, while certain metabolic genes show specific associations. To investigate therapeutic targets, they import this data into Nodes Bio to layer drug-target information, pathway enrichment scores, and clinical outcome data onto the network for multi-dimensional analysis.