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DNA sequencing is used ubiquitously: from deciphering genomes to determining the primary sequence of small RNAs (smRNAs). The cloning of smRNAs is currently the most conventional method to determine the actual sequence of these important regulators of gene expression. Typical smRNA cloning projects involve the sequencing of hundreds to thousands of smRNA clones that are delimited at their 5' and 3' ends by fixed sequence regions. These primers result from the biochemical protocol used to isolate and convert the smRNA into clonable PCR products.

To date, a significant amount of research has been conducted for computational modeling of the microRNA (miRNA)-target gene interactions and inferring different kinds of biologically relevant association from their variable expressions, available from microarray experiments. However, topological organization of the miRNA-transcription factor (TF) induced regulatory network has not yet been analyzed at a genome scale. Evidently, by ignoring the regulatory relationship among the constituent molecules, we expose our model to a great deal of noise.

RIP-chip is a high-throughput method to identify mRNAs that are targeted by RNA-binding proteins. The protein of interest is immunoprecipitated, and the identity and relative amount of mRNA associated with it is measured on microarrays. Even if a variety of methods is available to analyse microarray data, e.g. to detect differentially regulated genes, the additional experimental steps in RIP-chip require specialized methods.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small regulatory genes regulating gene expression by targeting messenger RNA. Though computational methods for miRNA target prediction are the prevailing means to analyze their function, they still miss a large fraction of the targeted genes and additionally predict a large number of false positives.

Artificially synthesized short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are widely used in functional genomics to knock down specific target genes. One ongoing challenge is to guarantee that the siRNA does not elicit off-target effects. Initial reports suggested that siRNAs were highly sequence-specific; however, subsequent data indicates that this is not necessarily the case.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs that play important roles in post-transcriptional regulations as well as other important biological processes. Recently, accumulating evidences indicate that miRNAs are extensively involved in cancer. However, it is a big challenge to identify which miRNAs are related to which cancer considering the complex processes involved in tumors, where one miRNA may target hundreds or even thousands of genes and one gene may regulate multiple miRNAs.