Contribution of miRNA non-seed region to gene silencing.

The list of putative targets perfectly matching the miRNA seed region (positions 2–8) was intersected with a list of experimentally validated miRNA targets [23]. Genes present on both lists were placed in the ‘Validated Targets’ group, while genes predicted to interact with miRNA but which have not been experimentally confirmed, were placed in ‘Remaining Genes’ group. The GC content in the positions 8–15 was calculated for both groups and compared. The difference was calculated by subtracting values of the ‘remaining’ group from the values in the ‘validated’ group.