Combined Computational and Experimental Analyses of Gene Regulation by MicroRNAs

项目摘要 MicroRNAs(MiRNAs)是一个小的非编码RNA分子家族，它下调 他们的基因靶标的表达。计算和实验研究都表明， 数以千计的人类蛋白质编码基因受miRNAs调控，miRNAs是主宰 许多重要生物过程的调节器。MiRNA表达的变化可能具有 深刻的生物影响，导致人类多种疾病。由于他们在 基因表达调控、miRNAs的功能表征已成为最重要的研究方向之一 近年来生物学研究领域十分活跃。 尽管miRNA研究取得了快速进展，但该领域的一个主要障碍是缺乏 用于功能性miRNA分析的稳健的计算和实验方法。由该基金提供资金 NIGMS R01在过去的十年里，我们取得了重大进展并发布了 关于miRNA和基因表达研究的方法很多。我们建立的方法有 被科学界广泛采用。特别是，我们已经开发出一种miRNA 目标预测工具miRDB，它已迅速成为主要的生物信息学资源和 被数以千计的出版物引用。此外，我们还开发了创新的 操纵miRNAs表达水平的实验方法。基于我们最新的 进展，我们建议进行计算和实验相结合的分析 继续开发用于miRNA研究的尖端技术。我们的工作有望发挥作用 通过为功能性miRNA提供有价值的资源，在miRNA领域产生重大影响 分析。

Project Summary MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a family of small non-coding RNA molecules that downregulate the expression of their gene targets. Both computational and experimental studies have shown that thousands of human protein-coding genes are regulated by miRNAs, and miRNAs are master regulators of many important biological processes. Changes in miRNA expression can have profound biological impacts, leading to a variety of human diseases. Due to their critical roles in gene expression regulation, 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. Funded by this NIGMS R01 grant over the past ten years, we have made significant progress and published many methods on miRNA and gene expression studies. The methods we established have been widely adopted by the scientific community. In particular, we have developed a miRNA target prediction tool, miRDB, which has quickly become a major bioinformatics resource and has been cited by thousands of publications. Moreover, we have developed innovative experimental methods to manipulate the expression levels of miRNAs. Built on our recent progress, we propose to perform combined computational and experimental analyses to continue to develop cutting-edge technologies for miRNA studies. Our work is expected to exert a significant impact in the miRNA field by providing valuable resources for functional miRNA analysis.