Progress in miRNA target prediction and identification

Recently, the identification of miRNA targets has received much attention. The strategies to determine miRNA targets include bioinformatic prediction and experimental assays. The bioinformatic prediction methods are mainly based on the confirmed rules of interaction between miRNAs and their targets, and are carried out by programs, such as miRanda, TargetScan, TargetScanS, RNAhybrid, DIANA-microT, PicTar, RNA22 and FindTar, which follow well-known principles. The experimental assays to find miRNA targets employ immunoprecipitation of AGO proteins to identify interacting mRNAs, or the analysis of mRNA or protein levels to identify genes which can be regulated by miRNAs. The improvement of current bioinformatic and experimental assays and the development of novel assays will enable greater efficiency in the identification of miRNA targets and thus facilitate miRNA research. This paper describes progress in the prediction and identification of miRNA targets.