LeukmiR: a database for miRNA and their targets in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

LeukmiR is a comprehensive microRNA database for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) comprising of in silico predicted microRNAs along with experimentally validated ones and their targets. This database provides collective information about ALL associated microRNAs, their sequences, description of target genes along with their location on the chromosomes and the corresponding signaling pathways that are affected. This database includes all the previously annotated microRNAs mined from databases such as miRBase, PhenomiR, miRCancer, miR2Disease, TargetScan, MicroCosm etc. along with their respective sequences retrieved from miRBase. LeukmiR has the information on the target genes from different signaling pathways such as Apoptosis, Jak-Stat, Notch, NF-kB, Wnt and TGF-beta sourced from KEGG-pathways providing the genomic context of these genes obtained from Ensembl-BioMart. Thus, LeukmiR is a single hub of information about the microRNAs implicated in ALL, their mode of action and possible interaction among different microRNAs presented in a compendious manner. All entries for both human and mouse genomes can be retrieved by miRNA ID, their accession number, sequence, target genes, Ensemble-ID or by Entrez-ID. User can also access miRNA:mRNA interaction networks in different singling pathways for both human and mouse genome. LeukmiR is the first of its nature, a comprehensive platform that renders concerted information about oncomiRs and their targets involved in ALL. This database is represented in an online format using MySQL, PHP, PERL, PERL-CGI and HTML tools supported by RDBMS platform. One can retrieve the output of the query in a user friendly manner with a query based interface.