title: miRBase Tracker: keeping track of microRNA annotation changes.
abstract: Since 2002, information on individual microRNAs (miRNAs), such as reference names and sequences, has been stored in miRBase, the reference database for miRNA annotation. As a result of progressive insights into the miRNome and its complexity, miRBase underwent addition and deletion of miRNA records, changes in annotated miRNA sequences and adoption of more complex naming schemes over time. Unfortunately, miRBase does not allow straightforward assessment of these ongoing miRNA annotation changes, which has resulted in substantial ambiguity regarding miRNA identity and sequence in public literature, in target prediction databases and in content on various commercially available analytical platforms. As a result, correct interpretation, comparison and integration of miRNA study results are compromised, which we demonstrate here by assessing the impact of ignoring sequence annotation changes. To address this problem, we developed miRBase Tracker (www.mirbasetracker.org), an easy-to-use online database that keeps track of all historical and current miRNA annotation present in the miRBase database. Three basic functionalities allow researchers to keep their miRNA annotation up-to-date, reannotate analytical miRNA platforms and link published results with outdated annotation to the latest miRBase release. We expect miRBase Tracker to increase the transparency and annotation accuracy in the field of miRNA research.
  www.mirbasetracker.org.
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Gert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Van Peer
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lefever
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Jasper
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Anckaert
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Anneleen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Beckers
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rihani
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van Goethem
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Pieter-Jan
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Volders
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Fjoralba
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zeka
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Maté
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ongenaert
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mestdagh
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium joke.vandesompele@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Jo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vandesompele
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D003628:Database Management Systems; D030561:Databases, Nucleic Acid; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D051379:Mice; D035683:MicroRNAs; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs