Tabari Biomedical Student Research Journal

mTOR/S6K1 signaling pathway is a center of cell growth and survival and dysregulation of this pathway is involved in the incidence of many cancers. MiRNAs are key regulators of gene expression at post-translational levels and their dysregulation is considered in many cancers. There are various methods for detection of miRNAs. Regarding extensive development of bioinformatics, these applications can be utilized for prediction of miRNAs and their target genes with acceptable accuracy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to apply bioinformatic software and programs, as a low cost method for prediction of miRNAs targeting mTOR/S6K1 signaling pathway. Prediction of miRNAs targeting mTOR and S6K1 genes was performed using bioinformatic software and programs named TargetScan, miRBase, miRanda, microCosm, microPIR, miRDB, miRSearch, miRWalk, DIANA-microT, PicTar, TarBase, miRTarBase, miRNAMap and MirZ bioinformatics tools Hsa-miR-100-5p, hsa-miR-99a-5p, hsa-miR-199a-3p, hsa-miR-99b-5p and hsa-miR-96-5p had the highest score and repeat among all databases to target 3ʹ-UTR of mTOR and hsa-miR-557, hsa-miR-362-5p, hsa-miR-500a-5p, hsa-miR-223-3p and hsa-miR-200c-3p had the highest score to target 3ʹ-UTR of S6K1. Bioinformatic approaches are accessible and low-cost techniques to find miRNAs targeting genes in different signaling pathways. Considering the role of mTOR/S6K1 signaling pathway in cell growth and survival and its dysregulation in different cancers, miRNAs that suppress this signaling pathway can be utilized as a potential effective therapeutic and diagnostic tool.