Fig. 5

Identification of molecular signatures for early HT using transcriptome analysis and clinical indicators. Spearman rank correlation analysis identified the top 10 DEmiRNAs strongly correlated with clinical indicators, ranked by the number of significant environmental factors and the magnitude of p-values. Red and blue modules represented positive and negative correlations, respectively. Significance levels: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 (A). Using miEAA, the enrichment and annotation of the 10 DEmiRNAs revealed GO pathways associated with immune and inflammation (B). Spearman rank correlation analysis was performed to calculate the correlations between the 10 DEmiRNAs. Positive correlations were represented by the color red, while negative correlations were represented by the color blue (C). A Venn diagram showed the intersection of predicted target mRNAs of hsa-miR-548aq-3p and hsa-miR-374a-5p with up-regulated DEmRNAs (D). The functional prediction of target mRNAs was conducted using KEGG and GO analysis, presenting all differential KEGG pathways and the top 10 GO pathways (BP, CC, and MF), ranked by p-value magnitude (p < 0.05). Four genes, namely ASTN2, MEX3B, YPEL2, and PTPN14, were not found to be associated with any significantly enriched pathways related to HT. Alternatively, their enriched pathways that were identified had only minimal or weak connections to HT (E). A Sankey diagram displayed the enrichment of 2 DEmiRNAs and their co-targeted 4 DEmRNAs in HT-related pathways (p < 0.05) (F)