Sputum Exosomal microRNAs Profiling Reveals Critical Pathways Modulated By Pseudomonas aeruginosa Colonization In Bronchiectasis

sRNAtoolbox: Dockerized Analysis of Small RNA Sequencing Data in Model and Non-model Species

The current versions of the microRNA databases MiRgeneDB, miRBase, and PmiREN contain annotations for a total of 358 different species. Public repositories, however, host small RNA sequencing data for over 800 species. This discrepancy implies that microRNA research is also very active in species that neither have an available high-quality genome assembly nor annotations for microRNAs or other types of noncoding genes. These cases are particularly challenging to analyze because reference sequences need to be collected from different sources and processed and formatted appropriately so that the dedicated small RNA analysis tools can make use of them. In this protocol we describe how small RNA sequencing data can be easily analyzed by means of a dockerized version of the well-established sRNAtoolbox/sRNAbench small RNA tools. We outline the analysis of two publicly available datasets to demonstrate basic aspects like the preparation of the local database, expression profiling, or differential expression analysis as well as more advanced features such as quantification of exogenous RNA content and data analysis in non-model species.

The Novel Regulatory Role of the lncRNA–miRNA–mRNA Axis in Chronic Inflammatory Airway Diseases

Chronic inflammatory airway diseases, characterized by airway inflammation and airway remodelling, are increasing as a cause of morbidity and mortality for all age groups and races across the world. The underlying molecular mechanisms involved in chronic inflammatory airway diseases have not been fully explored. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have recently attracted much attention for their roles in the regulation of a variety of biological processes. A number of studies have confirmed that both lncRNAs and miRNAs can regulate the initiation and progression of chronic airway diseases by targeting mRNAs and regulating different cellular processes, such as proliferation, apoptosis, inflammation, migration, and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). Recently, accumulative evidence has shown that the novel regulatory mechanism underlying the interaction among lncRNAs, miRNAs and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) plays a critical role in the pathophysiological processes of chronic inflammatory airway diseases. In this review, we comprehensively summarized the regulatory roles of the lncRNA–miRNA–mRNA network in different cell types and their potential roles as biomarkers, indicators of comorbidities or therapeutic targets for chronic inflammatory airway diseases, particularly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.

sRNAbench and sRNAtoolbox 2022 update: accurate miRNA and sncRNA profiling for model and non-model organisms

The NCBI Sequence Read Archive currently hosts microRNA sequencing data for over 800 different species, evidencing the existence of a broad taxonomic distribution in the field of small RNA research. Simultaneously, the number of samples per miRNA-seq study continues to increase resulting in a vast amount of data that requires accurate, fast and user-friendly analysis methods. Since the previous release of sRNAtoolbox in 2019, 55 000 sRNAbench jobs have been submitted which has motivated many improvements in its usability and the scope of the underlying annotation database. With this update, users can upload an unlimited number of samples or import them from Google Drive, Dropbox or URLs. Micro- and small RNA profiling can now be carried out using high-confidence Metazoan and plant specific databases, MirGeneDB and PmiREN respectively, together with genome assemblies and libraries from 441 Ensembl species. The new results page includes straightforward sample annotation to allow downstream differential expression analysis with sRNAde. Unassigned reads can also be explored by means of a new tool that performs mapping to microbial references, which can reveal contamination events or biologically meaningful findings as we describe in the example. sRNAtoolbox is available at: https://arn.ugr.es/srnatoolbox/.