The SNPs within 3'UTR of miRNA Target Genes Related to Multiple Sclerosis: A Computational Prediction

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory and demyelinating disease of the central nervous system, and genetic factors play an important role in its susceptibility. The expressions of many inflammatory genes implicated in MS are regulated by microRNA (miRNAs), whose function is to suppress the translation by pairing with miRNA Recognition Elements (MREs) present in the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of target mRNA. Recently, it has been shown that the Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) present within the 3'UTR of mRNAs can affect the miRNA-mediated gene regulation and susceptibility to a variety of human diseases. The aim of this study was to analyze the SNPs within the 3'UTR of miRNA inflammatory target genes related to multiple sclerosis. By DisGeNET, dbGaP, Ovid, DAVID, Web of knowledge, and SNPs databases, 3'UTR genetic variants were identified in all inflammatory genes associated with MS. Also, miRNA's target prediction databases were used for predicting the miRNA binding sites. We identified 125 SNPs with MAF>0.05 located in the binding site of the miRNA of 35 genes among 59 inflammatory genes related to MS. Bioinformatics analysis predicted 62 MRE-modulating SNPs and 59 MRE-creating SNPs in the 3'UTR of MSimplicated inflammatory genes. These candidate SNPs within miRNA binding sites of inflammatory genes can alter the miRNAs binding, and consequently lead to the mRNA gene regulation. Therefore, these miRNA and MRE-SNPs may play important roles in personalized medicine of MS, and hence, they would be valuable for further functional verification investigations.