Title

Polymorphism studies on microRNA targetome of thalassemia

Authors

Hamid Galehdari¹*, Seyedeh Zohreh Azarshin^1,2, Mehdi Bijanzadeh¹, Mohammad Shafiei^1,2

Affiliation

¹Thalassemia & Hemoglobinopathy Research center, research institute of Health, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran;

²Department of Genetics, Faculty of Sciences, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran;

Email

galehdari187@yahoo.com

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received May 3, 2018; Revised May 6, 2018; Accepted May 6, 2018; Published May 31, 2018

Thalassemia is one of the most prevalent hemoglobin disorders. It is caused by the decreased or absent synthesis of one globin chain that leads to moderate to severe hemolytic anemia in clinical complications. Some genetic factors cause these phenotypic variations by the alteration of gene expression. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are post-transcriptional regulators in gene expression. Therefore, variations in 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) of target genes may affect gene expression. It is of interest to evaluate the impact of noncoding SNPs in thalassemia related genes on miRNA: mRNA interactions in the severity of thalassemia. Polymorphisms that alter miRNA: mRNA interactions were predicted using PolymiRTS and Mirsnpscore tools. Then, the effect of predicted target SNPs on thermodynamic stability, local RNA structure and regulatory elements was investigated using RNAhybrid, RNAsnp and RegulomeDB, respectively. The molecular functions and the Biological process of candidate genes were extracted and interaction network was created. Forty-six SNPs were predicted to affect 188 miRNA interactions. These results suggest that 3'-UTR SNP may affect gene expression and cause phenotypic variation in thalassemia patients.

Keywords

MicroRNA, polymorphism, thalassemia

Citation

Galehdari et al. Bioinformation 14(5): 252-258 (2018)

Edited by

P Kangueane

Supplementary file

97320630014252S1.pdf

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.