title: MirZ: an integrated microRNA expression atlas and target prediction resource.
abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short RNAs that act as guides for the degradation and translational repression of protein-coding mRNAs. A large body of work showed that miRNAs are involved in the regulation of a broad range of biological functions, from development to cardiac and immune system function, to metabolism, to cancer. For most of the over 500 miRNAs that are encoded in the human genome the functions still remain to be uncovered. Identifying miRNAs whose expression changes between cell types or between normal and pathological conditions is an important step towards characterizing their function as is the prediction of mRNAs that could be targeted by these miRNAs. To provide the community the possibility of exploring interactively miRNA expression patterns and the candidate targets of miRNAs in an integrated environment, we developed the MirZ web server, which is accessible at www.mirz.unibas.ch. The server provides experimental and computational biologists with statistical analysis and data mining tools operating on up-to-date databases of sequencing-based miRNA expression profiles and of predicted miRNA target sites in species ranging from Caenorhabditis elegans to Homo sapiens.
authors.affiliation: Biozentrum, Universität Basel and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Klingelbergstrasse 50-70, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hausser
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Berninger
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rodak
authors.forename: Yvonne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jantscher
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wirth
authors.forename: Mihaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zavolan
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000378:metabolism*; D034622:RNA Interference; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D012984:Software; D018511:Systems Integration
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs; D012333:RNA, Messenger