miRMOD

miRMOD identifies and analyzes post-transcriptional 5′ and 3′ end modifications of microRNAs (miRNAs) from small RNA Next Generation Sequencing (sRNA NGS) data to evaluate their effects on miRNA stability and miRNA–mRNA interactions.

Key Features:

• Modification identification: Detects non-templated nucleotide additions and trimming at the 5′ and 3′ termini of miRNAs from sRNA NGS data.
• Target interaction analysis: Predicts and compares target genes of unmodified and modified miRNAs by calculating minimum free energies of miRNA–target interactions.
• Functional impact assessment: Assesses potential changes in gene repression resulting from terminal miRNA modifications through energy-based comparisons.
• sRNA NGS data support: Operates on small RNA Next Generation Sequencing (sRNA NGS) datasets to perform modification detection and downstream interaction analysis.

Scientific Applications:

• Functional studies of miRNA regulation: Investigates how 5′ and 3′ terminal modifications influence miRNA stability and target repression.
• Comparative analysis of modified versus unmodified miRNAs: Compares predicted targets and interaction energies to identify modification-driven changes in targeting.
• Conservation and evolutionary studies: Enables examination of conserved and functionally significant miRNA terminal modifications across species.

Methodology:

Leverages sRNA NGS data to detect non-templated nucleotide additions and trimming at miRNA termini and assesses effects on target gene repression by calculating and comparing minimum free energies of miRNA–target interactions.