miRNA Prediction

We present miRSeqNovel, an R based workflow for miRNA sequencing data analysis. miRSeqNovel can process both colorspace (SOLiD) and basespace (Illumina/Solexa) data by different mapping algorithms. It finds differentially expressed miRNAs and gives conservative prediction of novel miRNA candidates with customized parameters. miRSeqNovel is freely available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mirseq/files.[1]

MicroRNA (miRNA) plays an important role as a regulator in biological processes. Identification of (pre-)miRNAs helps in understanding regulatory processes. Machine learning methods have been designed for pre-miRNA identification. However, most of them cannot provide reliable predictive performances on independent testing datasets. We assumed this is because the training sets, especially the negative training sets, are not sufficiently representative.

With the avalanche of biological sequences generated in the post-genomic age, one of the most challenging problems is how to computationally analyze their structures and functions. Machine learning techniques are playing key roles in this field. Typically, predictors based on machine learning techniques contain three main steps: feature extraction, predictor construction and performance evaluation. Although several Web servers and stand-alone tools have been developed to facilitate the biological sequence analysis, they only focus on individual step.