Title: Pathway analysis of microRNAs in mouse heart development

Authors: Ganqiang Liu, Min Ding, Haiyun Wang, Jinyan Huang, Qing Jing, Bairong Shen

Addresses: School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China. ' School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China. ' School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China. ' School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China. ' Institute of Health Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031, China. ' Center for Systems Biology, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, Jiangsu, China

Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs, which regulate gene expression by promoting degradation or repressing translation of targeted transcripts. Current researches indicate that microRNAs play essential roles in heart development, but their regulating mechanisms are still elusive. Using computational methods, we analysed microRNAs associated pathways in mouse heart development and found that 24 pathways were enriched with target genes of microRNAs. Some of these pathways are reported important in heart development, while others are associated with cancer. The computational results could be used to guide experimental design for the further understanding of the microRNAs function in heart development.

Keywords: microRNAs; miRNAs; pathway enrichment analysis; heart development; mouse hearts; bioinformatics; RNA; gene expression; cancer; experimental design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBRA.2010.031289

International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications, 2010 Vol.6 No.1, pp.12 - 20

Published online: 27 Jan 2010 *

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