miRBase

In <a href="/facts/Bioinformatics/D5x2L8ee">bioinformatics</a>, miRBase is a <a href="/facts/Biological_database/cQyWM7bs">biological database</a> that acts as an archive of <a href="/facts/MicroRNA/UjqbYYpe">microRNA</a> <a href="/facts/Sequence_(biology)/JKT2Hh9s">sequences</a> and annotations. As of September 2010 it contained information about 15,172 microRNAs. This number has risen to 38,589 by March 2018. The miRBase registry provides a centralised system for assigning new names to microRNA genes.
miRBase grew from the microRNA registry resource set up by Sam Griffiths-Jones in 2003.
According to Ana Kozomara and Sam Griffiths-Jones miRBase has five aims:

<ol><li>To provide a consistent naming system for microRNAs</li>
<li>To provide a central place collecting all known microRNA sequences</li>
<li>To provide human and computer readable information for each microRNA</li>
<li>To provide primary evidence for each microRNA</li>
<li>To aggregate and link to microRNA target information</li></ol>
MiRBase contains miRNAs belonging of various species belonging to <a href="/facts/Alveolate/3TrXju5S">Alveolata</a>, <a href="/facts/Chromalveolata/a13nzwd7">Chromalveolata</a>, <a href="/facts/Metazoa/4b8J33nd">Metazoa</a>, <a href="/facts/Mycetozoa/EgD4yUNs">Mycetozoa</a>, <a href="/facts/Viridiplantae/YAn2Yzck">Viridiplantae</a> and <a href="/facts/Virus/mf88Bcbl">Viruses</a>. For the <a href="/facts/Viridiplantae/YAn2Yzck">Viridiplantae</a>, in release 21 (2014) data is available for 73 <a href="/facts/Species/oDg6b96r">species</a>. This includes 4800 unique mature <a href="/facts/MicroRNA/UjqbYYpe">miRNAs</a> and 8480 precursor sequences.
The current version of MiRBase is release 22 (March 2018).

miRBase open-in-new

miRBase