A New Network-Based Tool to Analyse Competing Endogenous RNAs

摘要

Interactions between microRNA targets are defined as competing endogenous RNAs. After discovery of the repressive activity of microRNAs with different mechanisms, various experimental or computational approaches have been developed to understand the relationships among their targets. We developed a package ceRNAnetsim that provides network-based computational method as considering the expressions and interaction factors of microRNAs and their targets. By using ceRNA targets that have similar expression value as trigger on a relatively small network with 4 microRNAs and 20 gene targets, the perturbation efficiency of these ceRN As on the network has been shown to be significantly different. However, the change was observed in the time (or iteration) to gaining steady-state of nodes on the network. So, we have provided the package which defines a user-friendly method for understanding complex ceRNA relationships, simulating the fluctuating behaviors of ceR-NAs, clarifying the mechanisms of regulation and defining potentially important ceRNA elements. The ceRNAnetsim package can be found in Bioconductor software packages.