RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 miRCurator: A rapid curation and analysis tool for plant microRNA studies JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2023.01.10.523394 DO 10.1101/2023.01.10.523394 A1 Avşar, Bihter A1 Aliabadi, Danial Esmaeili YR 2023 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/01/11/2023.01.10.523394.abstract AB Plant microRNAs (miRNAs) are tiny, non-coding RNAs that regulate the biological pathways either by inducing translational repression or messenger RNA decay. The advent of sequencing technologies increases the number of biological tools and computational methods to identify miRNAs with their targets inside the genome and transcriptome. In this study, we present a rapid curation software tool, the so-called miRCurator, which filters out unwanted microRNA candidates based on three significant criteria: (1) the pre-miRNA sequence should be deprived of multi-branched loops; (2) less than four mismatches on between mature miRNA and miRNA* strand are allowed; (3) no mismatches at DICER cut points are permitted on a mature miRNA strand. miRCurator is a stand-alone user-friendly package that does not rely on cutting-edge computing platforms. We have examined our tool on different organisms, which are shown as case studies, and it was able to successfully identify all the unwanted miRNA candidates. The developed tool helps to identify genuine miRNAs and provides reliable outcomes in an automated fashion by eliminating false-positive predictions.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.miRNAmicroRNAdsRNAdouble-stranded RNAhpRNAhairpin structured RNADCLDICER-likeAGOArgonautetasiRNAtrans-acting small interfering RNARDRsRNA-dependent RNA polymerasesRISCRNA-induced silencing complexVBAVisual Basic for ApplicationsANOVAanalysis of variance