Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

MicroTar: predicting microRNA targets from RNA duplexes.

Rahul Thadani1, Martti T Tammi

  • 1Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117543. rahul.thadani@nus.edu.sg

BMC Bioinformatics
|January 27, 2007
PubMed
Summary

MicroTar accurately predicts messenger RNA (mRNA) targets regulated by animal microRNAs (miRNAs), including those lacking conserved complementarity. This new tool improves upon existing methods for identifying functional miRNA-mRNA interactions.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Chromosome Ends in Motion: Telomeres as Hazards and Hubs in Meiosis.

Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology·2025
Same author

Chromosome arm length, and a species-specific determinant, define chromosome arm width.

Cell reports·2022
Same author

Centromeres are dismantled by foundational meiotic proteins Spo11 and Rec8.

Nature·2021
Same author

Cell-Cycle Regulation of Dynamic Chromosome Association of the Condensin Complex.

Cell reports·2018
Same author

CORNAS: coverage-dependent RNA-Seq analysis of gene expression data without biological replicates.

BMC bioinformatics·2018
Same author

Chromosome condensation: weaving an untangled web.

Current biology : CB·2015

Area of Science:

  • Molecular Biology
  • Bioinformatics
  • Genomics

Background:

  • Accurate prediction of microRNA (miRNA)-regulated messenger RNAs (targets) is crucial but challenging.
  • Current tools struggle to identify miRNA targets lacking conserved complementarity.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a novel computational tool, MicroTar, for predicting animal miRNA targets.
  • To address the limitations of existing methods in identifying non-conserved miRNA-target interactions.

Main Methods:

  • MicroTar utilizes miRNA-target complementarity and thermodynamic data.
  • The algorithm predicts free energies of unbound mRNA and mRNA-miRNA heterodimers.
  • It implicitly considers mRNA 3' untranslated region accessibility without relying on evolutionary conservation.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • MicroTar successfully predicts both conserved and non-conserved miRNA targets.
  • The tool's performance was evaluated on experimental datasets from C. elegans, Drosophila, and mouse.
  • MicroTar demonstrates higher sensitivity compared to previous prediction methods.

Conclusions:

  • MicroTar offers an improved approach for identifying functional miRNA-mRNA interactions.
  • The tool enhances the prediction of miRNA targets, including those with non-conserved binding sites.
  • MicroTar is available as open-source software for broader research application.