Paper Info
Title
What'S The Target: Understanding Two Decades Of In Silico Microrna-Target Prediction
Abstract
Motivation: Since the initial discovery of microRNAs as post-transcriptional, regulatory key players in the 1990s, a total number of 2656 mature microRNAs have been publicly described for Homo sapiens. As discovery of new miRNAs is still on-going, target identification remains to be an essential and challenging step preceding functional annotation analysis. One key challenge for researchers seems to be the selection of the most appropriate tool out of the larger multiverse of published solutions for a given research study set-up. Results: In this review we collectively describe the field of in silico target prediction in the course of time and point out long withstanding principles as well as recent developments. By compiling a catalog of characteristics about the 98 prediction methods and identifying common and exclusive traits, we signpost a simplified mechanism to address the problem of application selection. Going further we devised interpretation strategies for common types of output as generated by frequently used computational methods. To this end, our work specifically aims to make prospective users aware of common mistakes and practical questions that arise during the application of target prediction tools. Availability: An interactive implementation of our recommendations including materials shown in the manuscript is freely available at https://www.ccb.uni-saarland.de/mtguide.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1093/bib/bbz111
BRIEFINGS IN BIOINFORMATICS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
microRNAs, target prediction, model interpretation, post-transcriptional gene regulation, model selection guide
Journal
21
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
6
1467-5463
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Fabian Kern133.55
Christina Backes222420.37
Pascal Hirsch301.01
Tobias Fehlmann496.11
Martin Hart501.01
Eckart Meese610814.50
Andreas Keller717321.19