Inferring causative variants in microRNA target sites.

ABSTRACT: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate genes post transcription by pairing with messenger RNA (mRNA). Variants such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in miRNA regulatory regions might result in altered protein levels and disease. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) aim at identifying genomic regions that contain variants associated with disease, but lack tools for finding causative variants. We present a computational tool that can help identifying SNPs associated with diseases, by focusing on SNPs affecting miRNA-regulation of genes. The tool predicts the effects of SNPs in miRNA target sites and uses linkage disequilibrium to map these miRNA-related variants to SNPs of interest in GWAS. We compared our predicted SNP effects in miRNA target sites with measured SNP effects from allelic imb

SUBMITTER: Thomas LF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3167593 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature