Use custom miRNA-target interactions

Apart from the getTargets() function, users can use their own custom list of miRNA-target interactions. This function allows to directly add custom interactions to an existing MirnaExperiment object.

Usage

setTargets(mirnaObj, tg)

Arguments

mirnaObj: A MirnaExperiment object containing miRNA and gene data
tg: A data.frame object specifying miRNA-target interactions. Check the details section for the format

Value

A MirnaExperiment object containing miRNA targets stored in the targets slot. Results can be accessed with the mirnaTargets() function.

Details

This function requires interactions to be passed as a data.frame object with two column, one for miRNAs and one for genes. The column names of this data.frame must include MicroRNA and Gene.Symbol.

References

Ronchi, J., & Foti, M. (2026). MIRit: An integrative R framework for the identification of impaired miRNA–mRNA regulatory networks in complex diseases. Bioinformatics Advances, vbag042. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbag042

Author

Jacopo Ronchi, jacopo.ronchi@unimib.it

Examples

# load example MirnaExperiment object
obj <- loadExamples()

# define targets
tg <- data.frame(MicroRNA = c("hsa-miR-1179", "hsa-miR-1179"),
                 Gene.Symbol = c("ACVR2A", "ABI2"))

# set targets
obj <- setTargets(obj, tg)

# print targets
mirnaTargets(obj)
#>       MicroRNA Gene.Symbol
#> 1 hsa-miR-1179      ACVR2A
#> 2 hsa-miR-1179        ABI2