title: DISMIRA: Prioritization of disease candidates in miRNA-disease associations based on maximum weighted matching inference model and motif-based analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have increasingly been found to regulate diseases at a significant level. The interaction of miRNA and diseases is a complex web of multilevel interactions, given the fact that a miRNA regulates upto 50 or more diseases and miRNAs/diseases work in clusters. The clear patterns of miRNA regulations in a disease are still elusive.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this work, we approach the miRNA-disease interactions from a network scientific perspective and devise two approaches - maximum weighted matching model (a graph theoretical algorithm which provides the result by solving an optimization equation of selecting the most prominent set of diseases) and motif-based analyses (which investigates the motifs of the miRNA-disease network and selects the most prominent set of diseases based on their maximum number of participation in motifs, thereby revealing the miRNA-disease interaction dynamics) to determine and prioritize the set of diseases which are most certainly impacted upon the activation of a group of queried miRNAs, in a miRNA-disease network.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our tool, DISMIRA implements the above mentioned approaches and presents an interactive visualization which helps the user in exploring the networking dynamics of miRNAs and diseases by analyzing their neighbors, paths and topological features. A set of miRNAs can be used in this analysis to get the associated diseases for the input group of miRs with ranks and also further analysis can be done to find key miRs or diseases, shortest paths etc. DISMIRA can be accessed online for free at http://bnet.egr.vcu.edu:8080/dismira.
authors.forename: Joseph J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Nalluri
authors.forename: Bhanu K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Kamapantula
authors.forename: Debmalya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barh
authors.forename: Neha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jain
authors.forename: Antaripa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
authors.forename: Sintia Silva de
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.forename: Rommel Thiago Juca
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Ramos
authors.forename: Artur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.forename: Vasco
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Azevedo
authors.forename: Preetam
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ghosh
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016208:Databases, Factual; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks / Q000235:genetics*; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs