miRNAs target gene prediction and functional enrichment
In order to elucidate the mechanism of differentially expressed miRNAs,
we predicted the target genes of miRNAs using Targetscan (V5.0) and
miRanda (v3.3a). In the prediction results, the mRNAs with the highest
targeting score was selected as the target gene of
miRNAs(Table 3). To find the potential
biological associations of differential miRNAs, we performed GO and KEGG
pathway enrichment on these 36 mRNAs. The GO term is shown in
Fig4A, GO enrichment results showed that
differentially expressed miRNAs target genes were mainly involved in
“inflammatory response”, “immune response”, “signal transduction”,
“cytokine-mediumed signaling pathway”, “negative regulation of
apoptotic process” and “aging” biologocal process. And these mRNAs
may participate in the formation of membrance, cytoplasma, plasma
membrance, cytosol and nucleus. KEGG enrichment analysis showed that
pathways mainly included “cysteine and methionine metablism”, “Notch
signaling pathway”, “ferroptosis”, and “antigen processing and
presentation” in the Echinococcus multilocularis
infection(Fig 4B). These results showed
that E. multiloculari s infection can affect liver metabolic
function and changes in signaling pathways.
Table 3 miRNA target gene prediction