Automated rendering of multi-stranded DNA complexes with pseudoknots

Abstract

We present a general method for rendering representations of multi-stranded DNA complexes from textual descriptions into 2D diagrams. The complexes can be arbitrarily pseudoknotted, and if a planar rendering is possible, the method will determine one in time which is essentially linear in the size of the textual description. (That is, except for a final stochastic fine-tuning step.) If a planar rendering is not possible, the method will compute a visually pleasing approximate rendering in quadratic time. Examples of diagrams produced by the method are presented in the paper.