Bioinformatics History and Introduction - Chagall

Introduction contd.• First discovered in C. elegans in 1993– lin4, let7• Subsequently found to be widespread• About 1600+ human miRNAs known– Many have been associated with specific diseases• Identification of specific miRNA species may be a possible toolfor cancer diagnosis– TarBase – database of experimentally verified miRNAtargets– miRBase – database of published miRNA sequences andtargets24 January 2013 Luce Skrabanek