The microRNA analysis portal is a next-generation tool for exploring and analyzing miRNA-focused data in the literature

Abstract

MicroRNAs constitute a class of noncoding small RNAs involved in the posttranscriptional regulation of many biological pathways. In recent years, microRNAs have also been associated with regulation across kingdoms, demonstrating that exogenous miRNAs can function in mammals in a fashion similar to mammalian miRNAs. The growing interest in microRNAs and the increasing amount of literature and molecular and biomedical data available make it difficult to identify records of interest and keep up to date with novel findings. For these reasons, we developed the microRNA Analysis Portal (MAP). MAP selects relevant miRNA-focused articles from PubMed, links biomedical and molecular data and applies bioinformatics modules. At the time of this writing, MAP represents the richest, most complete and integrated database focused on microRNAs. MAP also integrates an updated version of MirCompare (2.0), a computational platform used for selecting plant microRNAs on the basis of their ability to regulate mammalian genes. Both MAP and MirCompare functionalities were used to predict that microRNAs from Moringa oleifera have putative roles across kingdoms by regulating human genes coding for proteins of the immune system. Starting from a selection of 94 human microRNAs, MirCompare selected 6 Moringa oleifera functional homologs. The subsequent prediction of human targets and areas of functional enrichment highlighted the central involvement of these genes in regulating immune system processes, particularly the host-virus interaction processes in hepatitis B, cytomegalovirus, papillomavirus and coronavirus. This case of use showed how MAP can help to perform complex queries without any computational background. MAP is available at http://stablab.uniroma2.it/MAP.

Diabetic cardiomyopathy: The role of microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs

“…Until 2019, the miRBase database (miRBase Release 22.1, https://www.mirbase.org/) reported entries of 38 589 miRNAs in 271 species, including 2654 mature human miRNAs (91). Increasing evidence supports the significant roles of miRNAs in regulating the mechanisms responsible for the pathophysiology of numerous diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, obesity, different types of cancer, and diabetes (73,(92)(93)(94)(95)(96)(97)(98).…”

miRNAs as Predictors of Barrier Integrity

“…Alternatively, miRNAs, by silencing one specific pathway, can up-regulate the transcription of certain target mRNAs that control the target genes [ 17 ]. According to a recent estimate, 60% of all protein-encoding genes are regulated by miRNAs [ 18 ]. Intricate studies of miRNA functions have revealed that a single miRNA can potentially target numerous mRNAs, whereas one mRNA can be targeted by multiple miRNAs, reflecting the complexity of gene expression regulation [ 19 ].…”

Review of databases for experimentally validated human microRNA–mRNA interactions

“…The roles of micro-ribonucleic acids (miRs) in disease development are increasingly the subject of biobehavioral research ( 1 ). MiRs are small, single-stranded, non-coding ribonucleic acids (RNAs) between 17 and 25 nucleotides in length that operate at the post-transcriptional level to regulate gene expression ( 2 ).…”