A Statistical Analysis of MicroRNA: Classification, Identification and Conservation Based on Structure and Function

The microRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs which play an important role in gene regulation and are involved in several biological functions. Studies have shown that there are several hundreds of them across (human) genome. And one miRNA may be involved in several genes and several miRNA may target a gene. In this regard it is interesting to know whether these several known miRNAs show structural and functional similarities. Do they fall into recognisable groups with respect to their structure and function and does the length of miRNA follow evolutionary principles and are highly conserved?. This study with the help of statistical tools explores characterising, identification of (human) miRNA based on their structure and function, network analysis of their relationship and target genes and conservation of their length and sequence structure across species.