Review of Computational Prediction of Competing Endogenous RNA

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are the gene regulatory molecules that bind to microRNA response elements (MREs) in the 3’ untranslated regions (UTRs) of mRNAs. The repressive activity of miRNA is counteracted by “miRNA sponges” or “competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs)” termed because of its competing nature of sequestering miRNA’s effect. The ceRNAs with multiple MREs for a miRNA interact more, resulting in a regulatory gene network layer. The perturbation of ceRNA network causes various diseases including cancer. This discovery has increased the analysis of ceRNA interactions, networks and dynamics. Currently, a number of ceRNA-ceRNA interaction analysis and prediction tools are available online. This review focuses on computational prediction of mRNA-mRNA pairs acting as ceRNAs and its significance in RNA therapeutics. The computational prediction tools are compared with respect to the input data retrieved, features considered and the prediction method.