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A useful step for understanding the function of microRNAs (miRNA) or siRNAs is the detection of their effects on genome-wide expression profiles. Typically, approaches look for enrichment of words in the 3(')UTR sequences of the most deregulated genes. A number of tools are available for this purpose, but they require either in-depth computational knowledge, filtered 3(')UTR sequences for the genome of interest, or a set of genes acquired through an arbitrary expression cutoff.

Non-coding elements such as miRNAs play key regulatory roles in living systems. These ultra-short, ~21 bp long, RNA molecules are derived from their hairpin precursors and usually participate in negative gene regulation by binding the target mRNAs. Discovering miRNA candidate regions across the genome has been a challenging problem. Most of the existing tools work reliably only for limited datasets.

miRNAs regulate post transcriptional gene expression by targeting multiple mRNAs and hence can modulate multiple signalling pathways, biological processes, and patho-physiologies. Therefore, understanding of miRNA regulatory networks is essential in order to modulate the functions of a miRNA. The focus of several existing databases is to provide information on specific aspects of miRNA regulation. However, an integrated resource on the miRNA regulome is currently not available to facilitate the exploration and understanding of miRNA regulomics.

Small RNAs (sRNAs) are a class of short (20-25nt) non-coding RNAs that play important regulatory roles in gene expression. An essential first step in understanding their function is to confidently identify sRNA targets. In plants, several classes of sRNAs such as microRNAs (miRNAs) and trans-acting small interfering RNAs have been shown to bind with near-perfect complementarity to their messenger RNA (mRNA) targets, generally leading to cleavage of the mRNA.