Context-specific miRNA regulation network predicts cancer prognosis

MicroRNAs can regulate hundreds of target genes and play a pivotal role in a broad range of biological process. However, relatively little is known about how these highly connected miRNAs-target networks are remodelled in the context of various diseases. Here we examine the dynamic alteration of context-specific miRNA regulation to determine whether modified microRNAs regulation on specific biological processes is a useful information source for predicting cancer prognosis. A new concept, Context-specific miRNA activity (CoMi activity) is introduced to describe the statistical difference between the expression level of a miRNA's target genes and non-targets genes within a given gene set (context).