RPRH: a web-based tool for the inference of potential roles of plant microRNAs in human body

Abstract

Recently, increasing studies reported that plant microRNAs (miRNAs) from food could be absorbed through gastrointestinal tract to regulate the physiological processes of animals. These novel cross-kingdom regulatory roles of plant miRNAs open a new field in miRNA study and drug discovery, but the lack of corresponding bioinformatics tools limit the development of this field. In this study, we built a web-based tool, RPRH (Role of Plant microRNA in Human), to infer the potential roles of plant miRNAs in human and to profile the landscape of all documented plant miRNAs regulatory functions in human. Totally, RPRH included 10414 miRNAs from 82 plant species and 18062 annotation terms like diseases, pathway, gene ontology (GO), and drugs. RPRH represents a bioinformatics resource for further investigation of cross-kingdom regulations of plant miRNAs. Availability: http://www.rnanut.net/rprh/