I also suggest Targetscan. Targetscan conserved sites, or alternatively, look those that have smaller context score value. If you have available array data-set for your tissue or cell type, you can reduce the number of targets and look only those that are expressed. In addition, you can subject your list to pathway analysis For instance http://biit.cs.ut.ee/gprofiler/ Those targets that are in the same pathway make usually more sense. Good luck!
Yes, there are many databses to predict miRNA target sites. we have used the following and worked well for us.
psRNATarget: a plant small RNA target analysis server
For details, pl. refer our article
Prasath D, Karthika R, Habeeba NT, Suraby EJ, Rosana OB, et al. (2014) Comparison of the Transcriptomes of Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) and Mango Ginger (Curcuma amada Roxb.) in Response to the Bacterial Wilt Infection. PLoS ONE 9(6): e99731. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0099731
I also suggest Targetscan. Targetscan conserved sites, or alternatively, look those that have smaller context score value. If you have available array data-set for your tissue or cell type, you can reduce the number of targets and look only those that are expressed. In addition, you can subject your list to pathway analysis For instance http://biit.cs.ut.ee/gprofiler/ Those targets that are in the same pathway make usually more sense. Good luck!
Other than the servers mentioned by Prof. Rebane you can try : PicTar (pictar.mdc-berlin.de), MicroCosm version 5 (www.ebi.ac.uk/enright-srv/microcosm), miRanda (www.microrna.org), DianamicroT version 3.0 (diana.cslab.ece.ntua.gr/microT) and miRWalk database (www.umm.uni-heidelberg.de/apps/zmf/mirwalk). Hope the information was useful.
I would like to suggest that you should use at least 4-5 independent miRNA target prediction sites and use only those targets which are verified by at least 3 different platforms you have used.
if possible, you can go through my publication "Genetic variations in microRNAs and the risk and survival of renal cell cancer" in PubMed. You can find the detailed process of searching miRNA target binding site
There are online tools to find miRNAs of two types: 1) gives you manually curated miRNAs (collected from papers from experiments proven in the lab), or 2) miRNA predication by computer algorithms.
So I think it is important that you know what direction you want. Online tools do mention if their miRNA are manually curated or computer predictions.