Enriching miRNA binding site specificity with sequence profile based filtering of 3'-UTR region of mRNA

MicroRNAs are small (approx. 22nt) noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression by either degrading messenger-RNA (mRNA) that has already been transcribed or by repressing the translation of mRNA. This mechanism of gene regulation by binding of the miRNA to 3-prime-UTR of target mRNAs has been recently discovered and sequence-specific post-transcriptional gene regulation process affects large set of genes involved in number of biological pathways. Mapping of 7nt long miRNAseed sequence to the target gene has been a standard way of predicting miRNA targets. In this study, we have generated a profile-based filter to increase the specificity of human miRNA-mRNA relationship thereby enriching true-positive miRNA target sitesin humans based on sequence information.