miSEA: microRNA set enrichment analysis

We introduce a novel web-based tool, miSEA, for evaluating the enrichment of relevant microRNA sets from microarray and miRNA-Seq experiments on paired samples, e.g. control vs. treatment. In addition to a group of previously annotated microRNA sets embedded in the system, this tool enables users to import new microRNA sets obtained from their own research. miSEA allows users to select from a large variety of microRNA grouping categories, such as family classification, disease association, common regulation, and genome coordinates, based on their requirements. miSEA therefore provides a knowledge-driven representation scheme for microRNA experiments. The usability of this platform was discerned with a cancer type-classification task performed on a set of real microRNA expression profiling experiments. The miSEA web server is available at http://www.baskent.edu.tr/∼hogul/misea