IsomiR-eQTL: A Cancer-Specific Expression Quantitative Trait Loci Database of miRNAs and Their Isoforms

Afshin Moradi; Paul Whatmore; Samaneh Farashi; Roberto A Barrero; Jyotsna Batra

doi:10.3390/ijms232012493

IsomiR-eQTL: A Cancer-Specific Expression Quantitative Trait Loci Database of miRNAs and Their Isoforms

Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Oct 18;23(20):12493. doi: 10.3390/ijms232012493.

Authors

Afshin Moradi^{1

2}, Paul Whatmore³, Samaneh Farashi^{1

2}, Roberto A Barrero³, Jyotsna Batra^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4059, Australia.
² Translational Research Institute, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4102, Australia.
³ eResearch, Research Infrastructure, Academic Division, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4000, Australia.
⁴ Faculty of Health, School of Biomedical Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4059, Australia.

Abstract

The identification of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) is an important component in efforts to understand how genetic variants influence disease risk. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short noncoding RNA molecules capable of regulating the expression of several genes simultaneously. Recently, several novel isomers of miRNAs (isomiRs) that differ slightly in length and sequence composition compared to their canonical miRNAs have been reported. Here we present isomiR-eQTL, a user-friendly database designed to help researchers find single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that can impact miRNA (miR-eQTL) and isomiR expression (isomiR-eQTL) in 30 cancer types. The isomiR-eQTL includes a total of 152,671 miR-eQTLs and 2,390,805 isomiR-eQTLs at a false discovery rate (FDR) of 0.05. It also includes 65,733 miR-eQTLs overlapping known cancer-associated loci identified through genome-wide association studies (GWAS). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the impact of SNPs on isomiR expression at the genome-wide level. This database may pave the way for researchers toward finding a model for personalised medicine in which miRNAs, isomiRs, and genotypes are utilised.

Keywords: GWAS; isomiR; isomiR-eQTL; miR-eQTL; miRNA.

MeSH terms

Genome-Wide Association Study
Humans
MicroRNAs* / genetics
MicroRNAs* / metabolism
Neoplasms* / genetics
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
Protein Isoforms / genetics
Quantitative Trait Loci

Substances

MicroRNAs
Protein Isoforms

Grants and funding

Afshin Moradi: Queensland University of Technology Postgraduate Research Award; J. Batra: National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship, Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship.