Figure 4

Analysis flowchart. (A) Blue boxes represent allele counts, with 773 alleles found in miRNA genes and 31 population-differentiated alleles within miRNA (PD-miRNA). Red boxes represent messenger RNA targets regulated by the 8 highly population-differentiated miRNAs (HPD-miRNAs). These targets were found to be involved in over 8000 gene ontology functions (GO terms) (orange boxes) and over 5,000 biological processes (green boxes). Seven PD-miRNAs were also found to be differentially expressed in 37 diseases, with cancer being the top hit. (B) Description of Target enrichment, Genomic Functional Enrichment, and MiRNA functional enrichment that was performed and displayed in A. Output of statistical function enrichments were clustered to determine overrepresented functions of HPD-miRNAs. Sugar and insulin metabolism were among the top hits in genomic functional enrichment (p < 0.001), including regulation of the glucose/insulin response pathway. Mitosis was the top hit in miRNA functional enrichment (p <0.001), including regulation of mitosis transition and checkpoint genes by HPD-miRNA.