MicroRNAs (miRNAs) represent an important class of small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) that regulate gene expression by targeting messenger RNAs. However, assigning miRNAs to their regulatory target genes remains technically challenging. Recently, high-throughput CLIP-Seq and degradome sequencing (Degradome-Seq) methods have been applied to identify the sites of Argonaute interaction and miRNA cleavage sites, respectively.
Whole-genome sequencing of cancers has begun to identify thousands of somatic mutations that distinguish the genomes of normal tissues from cancers. While many germline mutations within microRNAs (miRNAs) and their targets have been shown to alter miRNA function in cancers and have been associated with cancer risk, the impact of somatic mutations on miRNA function has received relatively little attention.
In this study, we describe miRSponge, a manually curated database, which aims at providing an experimentally supported resource for microRNA (miRNA) sponges. Recent evidence suggests that miRNAs are themselves regulated by competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) or 'miRNA sponges' that contain miRNA binding sites. These competitive molecules can sequester miRNAs to prevent them interacting with their natural targets to play critical roles in various biological and pathological processes.
Circular RNAs are new players in regulation of post transcriptional gene expression. Animal genomes express many circular RNAs from diverse genomic locations. A recent study has validated a fairly large number of circular RNAs in human, mouse, and nematode. Circular RNAs play a crucial role in fine tuning the level of miRNA mediated regulation of gene expression by sequestering the miRNAs. Their interaction with disease associated miRNAs indicates that circular RNAs are important for disease regulation.
Endogenous small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs), including microRNAs, PIWI-interacting RNAs and small interfering RNAs, play important gene regulatory roles in animals and plants by pairing to the protein-coding and non-coding transcripts. However, computationally assigning these various sRNAs to their regulatory target genes remains technically challenging. Recently, a high-throughput degradome sequencing method was applied to identify biologically relevant sRNA cleavage sites.
Host-virus interaction via host cellular components has been an important field of research in recent times. RNA interference mediated by short interfering RNAs and microRNAs (miRNA), is a widespread anti-viral defense strategy. Importantly, viruses also encode their own miRNAs. In recent times miRNAs were identified as key players in host-virus interaction. Furthermore, viruses were shown to exploit the host miRNA networks to suite their own need.
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) represent a new type of regulatory noncoding RNA that only recently has been identified and cataloged. Emerging evidence indicates that circRNAs exert a new layer of post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression.
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are widely expressed in animal cells, but their biogenesis and functions are poorly understood. CircRNAs have been shown to act as sponges for miRNAs and may also potentially sponge RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and are thus predicted to function as robust posttranscriptional regulators of gene expression. The joint analysis of large-scale transcriptome data coupled with computational analyses represents a powerful approach to elucidate possible biological roles of ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes.
Large-scale RNAseq has substantially changed the transcriptomics field, as it enables an unprecedented amount of high resolution data to be acquired. However, the analysis of these data still poses a challenge to the research community. Many tools have been developed to overcome this problem, and to facilitate the study of miRNA expression profiles and those of their target genes. While a few of these enable both kinds of analysis to be performed, they also present certain limitations in terms of their requirements and/or the restrictions on data uploading.
Our database aim to make it easy for researchers to find the right tools or data source for their own specific study in miRNA field. Now we have collect >1000 tools. This database will update when every new 100 tools add in. Last update time 22nd April, 2018 (v1.2).
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