2.5 Combining expression profiles to predict credible miRNA-mRNA
pairs
MiRanda
(http://www.microrna.org),17Targetscans
(http://www.targetscan.org),18and Pictar (http://pictar.mdc-berlin.de/cgi-bin/new_PicTar_mouse.cgi)19,20 were used to predict candidate miRNA-mRNA pairs,
and only union sets were examined further. Then, we selected more
reliable miRNA-mRNA pairs by
combining the gene expression profiles in our chip results; we focused
on upregulated miRNA-downregulated mRNA pairs or downregulated
miRNA-upregulated mRNA pairs. Finally, for each miRNA, functional
enrichment analysis of GO and KEGG pathways on its targets were
performed to analyze the possible regulatory effects of miRNA.