3.2 Identification of miRNA targets
Using the MiRWalk 2.0 validated-target miRNA-gene retrieval system, we obtained a collection of candidate genes of the 19 significant DEMs. The intersection number between these candidate genes and the DEGs screened out by NetworkAnalyst was 173, with 140 genes being upregulated and 33 genes downregulated (Appendix 2). Therefore, the 140 upregulated and 33 downregulated genes were collected as candidates for the final profiles of significant DEGs, including ADM, WNT3, WNT16, ZNF532 and ZNF608.