What is "mirbase"

In bioinformatics, miRBase is a biological database that acts as an archive of microRNA sequences and annotations. As of September 2010 it contained information about 15,172 microRNAs. The miRBase registry provides a centralised system for assigning new names to microRNA genes.

miRBase grew from the microRNA registry resource set up by Sam Griffiths-Jones in 2003.

According to Kozomara and Griffiths-Jones miRBase has five aims:

1. To provide a consistent naming system for microRNAs
2. To provide a central place collecting all known microRNA sequences
3. To provide human and computer readable information for each microRNA
4. To provide primary evidence for each microRNA
5. To aggregate and link to microRNA target information