title: mirConnX: condition-specific mRNA-microRNA network integrator.
abstract: mirConnX is a user-friendly web interface for inferring, displaying and parsing mRNA and microRNA (miRNA) gene regulatory networks. mirConnX combines sequence information with gene expression data analysis to create a disease-specific, genome-wide regulatory network. A prior, static network has been constructed for all human and mouse genes. It consists of computationally predicted transcription factor (TF)-gene associations and miRNA target predictions. The prior network is supplemented with known interactions from the literature. Dynamic TF- and miRNA-gene associations are inferred from user-provided expression data using an association measure of choice. The static and dynamic networks are then combined using an integration function with user-specified weights. Visualization of the network and subsequent analysis are provided via a very responsive graphic user interface. Two organisms are currently supported: Homo sapiens and Mus musculus. The intuitive user interface and large database make mirConnX a useful tool for clinical scientists for hypothesis generation and explorations. mirConnX is freely available for academic use at http://www.benoslab.pitt.edu/mirconnx.
authors.affiliation: Joint CMU-Pitt PhD Program in Computational Biology, Department of Computational and Systems Biology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: Grace T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Charalambos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Athanassiou
authors.forename: Panayiotis V
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Benos
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004194:Disease / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D051379:Mice; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000378:metabolism*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism*; D012984:Software; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014157:Transcription Factors