Figure 4

Efficient selection of genuine miRNAs by miRseeker. (a) Distribution of the top 2,996 candidates binned by helical/free energy score (white bars), of which 570 passed subsequent conservation filters (green bars). 21/24 members of the reference set received a score of 16 or higher, and 20 of these passed the conservation filters. Note that these figures do not include mir-10, which did not fall in an aligned contig and was thus not analyzed, even though its miRseeker score is 18.45 and it passes conservation filters. (b) List of the top 124 miRseeker candidates; members of the reference set are highlighted in green, newly identified miRNAs from this study in blue, and additional third-species-conserved candidates in orange. The vast majority of the highest-scoring candidates are bona fide.