I aligned all miRNAs available to the supercontigs of a particular genome with certain parameters (e value of 0.01 and a word match of atleast 7 as suggested in this paper). I have also isolated the pre-miRNAs (+100 nucleotides from either end of the match area). What would you suggest as ideal ab-initio methods to confirm that these miRNAs do exist in that particular genome? Some papers I found use mFOLD like this.
What would you suggest as best steps to confirm if a predicted miRNA/pre-miRNA is really present in the genome.