MyomirDB: A unified database and server platform for muscle atrophy myomiRs, coregulatory networks and regulons

Abstract

Muscular atrophy or muscle loss is a multifactorial clinical condition during many critical illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, pulmonary diseases etc. leading to fatigue and weakness and contributes towards a decreased quality of life. The proportion of older adults (>65 y) in the overall population is also growing and aging is another important factor causing muscle loss. Some muscle miRNAs (myomiRs) and their target genes have even been proposed as potential diagnostic, therapeutic and predictive markers for muscular atrophy. MyomirDB (http://www.myomirdb.in/) is a unique resource that provides a comprehensive, curated, user- friendly and detailed compilation of various miRNA bio-molecular interactions; miRNA-Transcription Factor-Target Gene co-regulatory networks and ~8000 tripartite regulons associated with 247 myomiRs which have been experimentally validated to be associated with various muscular atrophy conditions. For each database entry, MyomirDB compiles source organism, muscle atrophic condition, experiment duration, its level of expression, fold change, tissue of expression, experimental validation, disease and drug association, tissue-specific expression level, Gene Ontology and KEGG pathway associations. The web resource is a unique server platform which uses in-house scripts to construct miRNA-Transcription Factor-Target Gene co-regulatory networks and extract tri-partite regulons also called Feed Forward Loops. These unique features helps to offer mechanistic insights in disease pathology. Hence, MyomirDB is a unique platform for researchers working in this area to explore, fetch, compare and analyse atrophy associated miRNAs, their co-regulatory networks and FFL regulons.