Bioinformatic Evaluation of miR-222-3p Specificity in Binding to Genes Involved in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Children

Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is a type of cancer that affects white blood cells. The disease progresses rapidly mandating immediate treatment. ALL is the most common type of leukemia affecting children. An increase in the miR-222-3p molecule has been observed in the course of this disease. The microarray method can be used to examine the binding of this miRNA and target genes, which is not without limitations. Hence, the present study deployed computer and bioinformatics methods with different specialized software.

Target genes were identified using different algorithms available in Mirbase, TargetScan, NCBI and RNAhybrid databases, and based on the scores obtained, the targets with the highest affinity were identified.

The findings of this study showed that the CDH4, AJAP1, HNRNPA0, UBN1 and ZNF618 genes are potential targets with higher specificity for miR-222-3p.

Factors involved in selecting targets with high specificity and affinity is dependent on the amount of negative free energy and the number of base pairs formed between miRNA and 3'-UTR of different genes.