IIKmTA: Inter and Intra Kingdom miRNA Target Analyzer


Gene expression can be fine tuned by microRNAs (miRNAs) at intra- and extra-cellular level. Growing evidences suggest that mammalian gene expression can be regulated by plant/food-derived miRNAs which are accumulated in the serum of humans or plant-feeding animals. Thus the tiny molecule can act as cellular signaling information carrier across various species or even kingdoms. Though the inter- and intra-kingdom miRNA transfer has boosted up the hypothesis about the potential impact of plant or animal miRNAs, the mechanism of miRNA-shuttling between different organisms is still not well characterized. In this study, a novel web-tool, database along with analyzing facility, "IIKmTA: Inter and Intra Kingdom miRNA Target Analyzer" has been designed by us. Here user can analyze the targeting potential of (i) plant miRNAs on animal UTRs (Untranslated regions), and vice-versa (i.e., inter kingdom), (ii) plant miRNAs on plant UTRs and animal miRNAs on animal UTRs (i.e. intra kingdom). Further, user can analyze the relationship depending on (i) miRNAs to targets, (ii) targets to miRNAs, and (iii) miRNA sets targeting sets of targets. IIKmTA can calculate the GC% and AU% of miRNAs and also can analyze combinatorial miRNA-target and target-miRNA. However, this tool can not predict miRNA targets; it is based on already predicted statistically significant miRNA and their targets. All the results can be downloaded as .csv file.