Ingenuity Systems, a leading provider of information and analytics solutions for life science researchers, announced new features to support RNA-sequencing workflows and microRNA research in IPA. Processed RNA-Seq datasets can now be uploaded directly into IPA and analyzed in the context of pathways and diseases for a rich biological interpretation of the data. These helps researchers quickly and accurately focus on the most important information within their large RNA-Seq datasets, quickening the pace of research.

IPA also now includes a unique new microRNA Target Filter, making IPA the only commercially available tool that allows researchers to examine both predicted and experimentally demonstrated microRNA-mRNA pairings, prioritize targets based on relevant biological context, and visualize the molecular interactions of those target relationships and related biological impacts.

“The new microRNA Target Filter plus the additional microRNA content is an ideal combination to help prioritize miRNA target interactions,” stated Aaron Sarver PhD, University of Minnesota. “IPA users can quickly filter those interactions based on relevant biology, and then visualize the biological effects of target interactions. IPA makes it much simpler to find interesting insights, and allows me to systematically utilize the miRNA literature to generate novel testable hypotheses.”

“Whether our customers are working with ‘omics or next-generation sequencing platforms, there is a fundamental gap between the output of data and the ability to analyze and interpret the results in a meaningful biological way,” stated Doug Bassett, PhD, CSO and CTO, Ingenuity Systems. “IPA 9.0 narrows this gap with support for new platforms, new analytics, and complementary new content all designed to support key needs of our customers, such as biological interpretation of microRNA and NGS datasets. IPA has become the industry standard for delivering powerful biological insights from large scale data, and we are pleased to be able to offer exciting new capabilities to researchers in these rapidly growing research areas. Regardless of platform, it’s clear that examining genes in the context of known molecular relationships, biological processes, and disease relationships, provides a faster and more reliable way to identify key insights from complex data.”

The latest release of IPA includes significant feature enhancements designed to help researchers get maximum value from data generated by NGS, microarray, and ‘omics experiments. New first-of-a-kind microRNA Target Filter capability and microRNA content: Get insight into the biological effects of microRNAs using both experimentally demonstrated and predicted microRNA-mRNA relationships.

Identify mRNA targets for microRNAs using newly added predicted microRNA–mRNA binding relationships from TargetScan, in addition to information on experimentally validated relationships from TarBase, to reduce number of steps to confidently identify targets by examining microRNA-mRNA pairings, exploring the related biological context of these relationships, and filtering mRNA targets based on relevant biological characteristics, all within a single tool. Easily prioritize mRNA target interactions based on confidence levels of interaction predictions, source, role or presence in species, diseases, tissues, pathways, cell lines, molecular types, and more and elucidate the mechanism of action of microRNAs and leverage microRNA and mRNA data in combination with other types of datasets for an integrated biological analysis.

Expanded RNA-Seq workflow: Directly upload processed RNA-Seq datasets into IPA to analyze and understand RNA-Seq data in the context of known biology to get a comprehensive view of the experimental system. Quickly move beyond statistical analysis of high-throughput RNA-Seq data to understand the biological implications of your data, so you can accurately identify novel disease mechanisms, prioritize drug targets, generate hypotheses, and more and seamlessly move from data processing tools to biological interpretation in IPA by directly uploading RefSeq, Ensembl, and UCSC IDs.

Enhanced user interface: IPA’s new quick-start and usability enhancements support a more intuitive user interaction and streamlined access to a variety of important workflows. Researchers can upload and analyze their data in one simple step, more quickly search for genes or pathways, and more easily visualize connections among genes.

Ingenuity Systems is a leading provider of information solutions and custom services for life science researchers, computational biologists and bio-informaticists, and life science industry suppliers.