Figure 5

Examples of potential feed forward regulatory loops. A potential feed forward loop (FFL) was generated if a DEmiRNA and its predicted regulatory transcriptional factor targeted the same DEG (see Additional file 1). Red, blue and gray lines represent the predicted transcriptional activation (i.e. positive correlation), predicted transcriptional repression (i.e. negative correlation) and relationships between DEmiRNAs and their predicted targets (without considering expression correlations), respectively. The left inserts illustrate coherent and incoherent FFLs. JUN, miR-195 and AXUD1 form a coherent FFL in which transcriptional (from JUN to AXUD1) and miRNA-mediated regulation (from JUN to AXUD1 via miR-195) are synergistic. In contrast, NFATC4, miR-29b and COL3A1 form an incoherent FFL in which two opposite regulatory interactions occur.