Why carry out this study?

· Smoking is an independent risk factor for the formation and rupture of intracranial aneurysms (IA). However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear.

· We performed miRNA sequencing on plasma from 10 smoking IA, 10 non-smoking IA patients, and 10 healthy controls.

We also performed functional and pathway enrichment analysis of the differentially expressed miRNA target genes. Correlations with the clinal parameters were also performed by using receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis.

What was learned from the study?

· Smoking could significantly alter the plasma miRNA profile in intracranial aneurysm patients.

· The expression of miR-574-5p, miR-151a-3p, and miR-652-3p correlated with aneurysm height and width.

· miR-574-5p, miR-151a-3p, and miR-652-3p showed high sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of intracranial aneurysm.