miRViz

miRViz visualizes miRNA datasets by overlaying expression, differential expression, and phenotypic scores onto predefined miRNA networks to aid interpretation of miRNA-mediated regulation of mRNAs and hypothesis generation from high-throughput studies.

Key Features:

• Data visualization and interpretation: Overlays expression levels, differential expression metrics, and phenotypic scores onto miRNA networks to contextualize miRNA activity.
• Network types: Uses networks based on genomic positions, shared mRNA targets, and shared seed sequences to group and relate miRNAs.
• Comparative analysis: Enables comparison of different datasets on the same network or the same dataset across different miRNA networks to reveal patterns.
• High-throughput compatibility: Processes lists of differentially expressed or phenotypically screened miRNAs generated by high-throughput methodologies.
• Species coverage: Supports datasets from 11 eukaryotic species for cross-species analyses.
• Hypothesis generation: Highlights groups of related miRNAs to facilitate identification of candidates for further experimental investigation.

Scientific Applications:

• miRNA family identification: Rapid identification of families such as the miRNA-320 family, which is exported in exosomes from colon cancer cells.
• Stem-cell and pluripotency studies: Visual identification of miRNA groups associated with pluripotency that regulate breast cancer stem-cell populations in culture.

Methodology:

Integrates input datasets and maps values onto predefined miRNA networks (genomic position, shared targets, shared seed sequences) to produce comparative visualizations.