Identifying Melissa officinalis microRNAs as putative inhibitors in neurodegenerative disorders: a cross-kingdom approach

Abstract

MicroRNAs are endogenous molecules that play a significant regulatory role in numerous physiological processes in plants and animals. The pivotal role of miRNAs is gene silencing by binding to a mature transcript’s 3′ UTR region which could be promising biomarkers for various diseases. Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) possesses innumerable ethnomedicinal significance. Abundant studies have well-documented the cross-kingdom post-transcriptional regulatory potential of plant-derived small noncoding microRNAs. Under the aegis of a plant genomics approach, substantial advances in the first-ever in-silico microRNA analysis of Melissa officinalis were implemented. The present work aims to identify and uncover the role of Melissa officinalis plant miRNAs in Neurodegenerative disorders. The current study records the transcriptome-wide identification of 29 novel conserved miRNAs using sequence similarity search and mfold web server respectively, with a total of 99 potential human gene targets and top 10 prospective hub nodes as ESR1, CASP8, SPTBN1, RPL27A, IRF8, PRKCB, QKI, IGF2BP1, TTLL12 and NUP153 which were identified using psRNATarget and Cytoscape; targeted by miRNA families such as miR4995, miR397b, miR397-5p, miR397b-5p, miR396g-3p, miR2914, and miR397. Moreover, targeted genes were annotated by Funrich software, and a disease association study was conducted in the KEGG mapper database. The identified class of small RNAs were found to be associated with neurodegenerative disease, and various carcinomas. Consequently, identified top 4 hub genes CASP8, SPTBN1, PRKCB, and TTLL12 show their crucial involvement in the Neurodegenerative disorder pathways such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Spinocerebellar ataxia, and Axonal diseases. The findings can further contribute to understanding miRNA function and their regulatory mechanism in humans, leading to further implementation of other research objectives.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Gene enrichment analysis / Melissa officinalis / microRNAs / Neurodegenerative disorder / Protein–protein interaction

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