MirNat s.r.l., 00133, Rome, Italy.
Department of Biology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 26;11(1):9007. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-88617-6.
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 .
MicroRNAs 是一类非编码的小 RNA，参与许多生物途径的转录后调控。近年来，microRNAs 也与跨领域的调控有关，表明外源性 microRNAs 可以以类似于哺乳动物 microRNAs 的方式在哺乳动物中发挥作用。microRNAs 的研究兴趣日益浓厚，文献和分子及生物医学数据的数量不断增加，这使得识别感兴趣的记录并跟上新发现的进展变得困难。出于这些原因，我们开发了 microRNA 分析门户 (MAP)。MAP 从 PubMed 中选择与 miRNA 相关的重点文章，链接生物医学和分子数据，并应用生物信息学模块。在撰写本文时，MAP 代表了最丰富、最完整和集成的 microRNA 数据库。MAP 还集成了 MirCompare（2.0）的更新版本，MirCompare 是一个用于根据其调节哺乳动物基因的能力选择植物 microRNAs 的计算平台。MAP 和 MirCompare 的功能都被用于预测辣木（Moringa oleifera）的 microRNAs 通过调节人类编码免疫系统蛋白的基因在跨领域中具有潜在作用。从 94 个人类 microRNAs 中选择，MirCompare 选择了 6 个辣木功能同源物。随后对人类靶标和功能富集区的预测强调了这些基因在调节免疫系统过程中的核心作用，特别是乙型肝炎、巨细胞病毒、乳头瘤病毒和冠状病毒中的宿主-病毒相互作用过程。这个案例展示了如何在没有任何计算背景的情况下使用 MAP 执行复杂的查询。MAP 可在 http://stablab.uniroma2.it/MAP 上获得。
