Definiton: An interaction where a macromolecule is polymerized from a template macromolecule. Rationale: This is an abstraction over multiple (not explicitly stated) biochemical reactions. The ubiquitous molecules (NTP and amino acids) consumed are also usually omitted. Template reaction is non-stoichiometric, does not obey law of mass conservation and temporally non-atomic. It, however, provides a mechanism to capture processes that are central to all living organisms. Usage: Regulation of TemplateReaction, e.g. via a transcription factor can be captured using TemplateReactionRegulation. TemplateReaction can also be indirect for example, it is not necessary to represent intermediary mRNA for describing expression of a protein. It was decided to not subclass TemplateReaction to subtypes such as transcription of translation for the sake of simplicity. If needed these subclasses can be added in the future. Examples: Transcription, translation, replication, reverse transcription. E.g. DNA to RNA is transcription, RNA to protein is translation and DNA to protein is protein expression from DNA.
Source:http://www.biopax.org/release/biopax-level3.owl#TemplateReaction