Title: DuplexFinder: Predicting the miRNA–miRNA* duplex from the animal precursors

Authors: Quan Zou, Maozu Guo, Yang Liu, Ping Xuan

Addresses: School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 319, Xidazhi Street 92, Harbin 150001, China. ' School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 319, Xidazhi Street 92, Harbin 150001, China. ' School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 319, Xidazhi Street 92, Harbin 150001, China. ' School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 319, Xidazhi Street 92, Harbin 150001, China

Abstract: It is an important work to search unknown microRNA gene from genome or EST sequences. There are several ab initio methods to classify microRNA precursors from random hairpins. However, the exact position of the mature part in the precursor remains unknown only from these ab initio classification methods. In this paper, we propose four significant position distribution features, and then give a computational method to predict the miRNA–miRNA* duplex from the animal precursors. It is helpful for classifying miRNA precursor and detecting unknown miRNA genes.

Keywords: microRNA precursor; miRNA–miRNA* duplex; ab initio method; bioinformatics; animal precursors; miRNA genes; gene detection.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBRA.2010.031293

International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications, 2010 Vol.6 No.1, pp.69 - 81

Published online: 27 Jan 2010 *

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