Arena3D 3.0: a web server for exploring, analyzing, annotating and sharing multilayered networks in 3D

Multilayer networks describe biological entities linked by several kinds of relation or measured under several conditions. Arena3D 3.0, a complete reimplementation of Arena3Dweb, gives each layer its own place in an interactive 3D scene. Networks are uploaded or imported from STRING, IntAct, OmniPath, NDEx, Reactome and the Gene Ontology. Twelve layouts, seven in 3D, are available, and node copies can be aligned across layers. Layers are drawn as floors or 3D containers in thirteen arrangements, including 3D hive plots. Communities and annotated groups can be laid out apart and outlined as hulls or fog clouds, and edges can be bundled. Analyses cover node and multilayer metrics, distributions and perturbation, with chord, Sankey, heatmap, UpSet and UMAP views. Networks go to Cytoscape, Gephi Lite, NORMA and JBrowse 2, gene lists to Flame, and a REST API gives programmatic access. Arena3D 3.0 is free at www.arena3d.org without login.

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Publication Details

Journal
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Published
2026-10-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.10.23.761450
Primary Topic
Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
Type
preprint
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preprint

Arena3D 3.0: a web server for exploring, analyzing, annotating and sharing multilayered networks in 3D

Eleni Aplakidou, Fotis A. Baltoumas, Evangelos Karatzas, Maria Kokoli et al.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
preprint

Arena3D 3.0: a web server for exploring, analyzing, annotating and sharing multilayered networks in 3D

Eleni Aplakidou, Fotis A. Baltoumas, Evangelos Karatzas, Maria Kokoli, Ilias Georgakopoulos‐Soares, Nataša Pržulj, Georgios A. Pavlopoulos, Αλέξανδρος Γαλάρας, Maria N Chasapi, Iro N Chasapi, Efthimia Lamari, Marios Itsios
preprint en

Abstract

Multilayer networks describe biological entities linked by several kinds of relation or measured under several conditions. Arena3D 3.0, a complete reimplementation of Arena3Dweb, gives each layer its own place in an interactive 3D scene. Networks are uploaded or imported from STRING, IntAct, OmniPath, NDEx, Reactome and the Gene Ontology. Twelve layouts, seven in 3D, are available, and node copies can be aligned across layers. Layers are drawn as floors or 3D containers in thirteen arrangements, including 3D hive plots. Communities and annotated groups can be laid out apart and outlined as hulls or fog clouds, and edges can be bundled. Analyses cover node and multilayer metrics, distributions and perturbation, with chord, Sankey, heatmap, UpSet and UMAP views. Networks go to Cytoscape, Gephi Lite, NORMA and JBrowse 2, gene lists to Flame, and a REST API gives programmatic access. Arena3D 3.0 is free at www.arena3d.org without login.

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
University of Crete (GR), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (GR), Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (AE), University College London (GB), Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center (GR), The University of Texas at Austin (US)
Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
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Arena3D 3.0: a web server for exploring, analyzing, annotating and sharing multilayered networks in 3D — Eleni Aplakidou, Fotis A. Baltoumas, et al. · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS