COMBINED COMPUTATIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSES OF GENE REGULATION BY MICRORNAS.

项目摘要 microRNAs（miRNAs）广泛参与许多不同的生物过程， 单个miRNA可以调控数百个基因靶点的表达。miRNA的变化 基因表达可能产生深远的生物影响，导致各种人类疾病。因此，在本发明中， miRNAs的功能鉴定已成为目前最活跃的研究领域之一 近年来，生物尽管miRNA研究进展迅速，但这方面的一个主要障碍是， 目前，功能性miRNA的研究还缺乏可靠的计算和实验方法 分析. 1)在实验方面，强烈需要开发新的方法， 可以有效抑制miRNA的表达，用于功能丧失分析。2)上 在计算方面，强烈需要改进的目标预测工具， miRNA靶点的预测是miRNA功能分析的关键第一步。此外， 缺乏通过访问数据进行miRNAs功能分析的综合在线资源 从计算和实验两个方面。为解决这些问题，我们建议 为miRNAs的计算和实验分析开发新的方法。这些 新的方法将基于我们由R01资助的研究的最新进展。 所有新生成的计算和实验资源将在 一个在线miRNA数据库，实验试剂免费分发给研究人员， 社区

Project Summary MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are extensively involved in many diverse biological processes and a single miRNA can regulate the expression of hundreds of gene targets. Changes in miRNA expression can have profound biological impacts, leading to a variety of human diseases. Thus, functional characterization of miRNAs has become one of the most active research fields in biology in recent years. Despite rapid progress in miRNA research, one major obstacle in this field is the lack of robust computational and experimental methods for functional miRNA analysis. 1) On the experimental side, there is a strong demand to develop new methods that can potently suppress the expression of miRNAs for loss-of-function analysis. 2) On the computational side, improved target prediction tools are strongly demanded, as accurate prediction of miRNA targets is a critical first step for miRNA functional analysis. Further, there is a lack of comprehensive online resources for functional analysis of miRNAs by accessing data from both computational and experimental sources. To address these issues, we propose to develop new methods for both computational and experimental analyses of miRNAs. These new methods will be based on recent progress from our research supported by this R01 grant. All newly generated computational and experimental resources will be integratively presented in an online miRNA database, with experimental reagents freely distributed to the research community.