Agarwal et al.

Search for predicted microRNA targets in mammals         [Go to TargetScanMouse]
  [Go to TargetScanWorm]
  [Go to TargetScanFly]
  [Go to TargetScanFish]

1. Select a species    

AND

2. Enter a human gene symbol (e.g. "Hmga2")
    or an Ensembl gene (ENSG00000149948) or transcript (ENST00000403681) ID

AND/OR

3. Do one of the following:

  • Select a broadly conserved* microRNA family

  • Select a conserved* microRNA family

  • Select a poorly conserved but confidently annotated microRNA family

  • Select another miRBase annotation
    Note that most of these families are star miRNAs or RNA fragments misannotated as miRNAs.

  • Enter a microRNA name (e.g. "miR-9-5p")

  • * broadly conserved = conserved across most vertebrates, usually to zebrafish
      conserved = conserved across most mammals, but usually not beyond placental mammals


    TargetScan predicts biological targets of miRNAs by searching for the presence of conserved 8mer, 7mer, and 6mer sites that match the seed region of each miRNA (Lewis et al., 2005). As an option, predictions with only poorly conserved sites are also provided. Also identified are sites with mismatches in the seed region that are compensated by conserved 3' pairing (Friedman et al., 2009) and centered sites (Shin et al., 2010). In mammals, predictions are ranked based on the predicted efficacy of targeting as calculated using cumulative weighted context++ scores of the sites (Agarwal et al., 2015). As an option, predictions are also ranked by their probability of conserved targeting (PCT, Friedman et al., 2009). TargetScanHuman considers matches to human 3' UTRs and their orthologs, as defined by UCSC whole-genome alignments. Conserved targeting has also been detected within open reading frames (ORFs). A listing of these ORF sites can be found at the bottom of Supplemental Table 2 of Lewis et al., 2005.

    This search page of TargetScan Release 7.2 retrieves predicted regulatory targets of mammalian microRNAs. Many targets are the same as those presented in previous versions of the TargetScan site (Releases 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0 - 4.2, 5.0 - 5.2, 6.0 - 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1 (Lewis et al., 2005; Grimson et al., 2007; Friedman et al., 2009; Garc\EDa et al., 2011). Compared to previous releases, Release 7 uses an improved method to predict targeting efficacy (the context++ model, Agarwal et al., 2015), uses 3' UTR profiles that indicate the fraction of mRNA containing each site (Nam et al., 2014), and uses updated miRNA families curated from Chiang et al., 2010 and Fromm et al., 2015.

    An introduction to microRNAs (iBiology talk)

    Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

    More information about Release 7.2

    Download data, code, or analysis tools


    To reference information from this database, please cite one of the following papers:

    Agarwal V, Bell GW, Nam J, Bartel DP. Predicting effective microRNA target sites in mammalian mRNAs. eLife, 4:e05005, (2015). eLife Lens view.

    Garc\EDa DM, Baek D, Shin C, Bell GW, Grimson A, Bartel DP. Weak Seed-Pairing Stability and High Target-Site Abundance Decrease the Proficiency of lsy-6 and Other miRNAs. Nat Struct Mol Biol., 18:1139-1146 (2011).

    Friedman RC, Farh KK, Burge CB, Bartel DP. Most Mammalian mRNAs Are Conserved Targets of MicroRNAs. Genome Research, 19:92-105 (2009).

    Grimson A, Farh KK, Johnston WK, Garrett-Engele P, Lim LP, Bartel DP. MicroRNA Targeting Specificity in Mammals: Determinants beyond Seed Pairing. Molecular Cell, 27:91-105 (2007).

    Lewis BP, Burge CB, Bartel DP. Conserved Seed Pairing, Often Flanked by Adenosines, Indicates that Thousands of Human Genes are MicroRNA Targets. Cell, 120:15-20 (2005).



    Links
  • Bartel lab
  • miRBase
  • Bioinformatics and Research Computing (Whitehead Institute)