introduction

microRNAs are a large class of non-coding ~22 nucleotide RNAs.One miRNA can target many different sites on the same mRNA or on many different mRNAs.About 1% of human genes encode for miRNAs, and up to 30% of human protein-coding genes may be regulated by miRNAs.Over 1400 human miRNAs are identified (http://www.mirbase.org), which regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by binding to 3 prime untranslated region(UTR) of mRNA transcript. MicroRNAs have been implicated in numerous developmental and adult diseases, but disease specific microRNAs and proposing them to use as biomarkers in relation to personal genome is lacking. Therefore, in my project using Sri Lankan genome as a reference of whole population, I am going to develop a web based database of disease specific microRNA by mining existing evidence of how variation in 3’ UTR of target transcript will affect binding of microRNA and gene expression. This database will assist the wet lab people on further studying human disease and microRNA association.