Table 4.

A summary of the candidate validation miRNAs and their known function.

miRNA	Description	References
miR-124-3p	A highly expressed miRNA in the CNS	Cheng et al., 2009; Meza-Sosa et al., 2014
	Involved in maintaining neuronal cell identity	Maiorano and Mallamaci, 2010
	Involved in maintaining synaptic plasticity	Rajasethupathy et al., 2009
	Found in the brain of ALS mice at late stage disease, with miR-9 and miR-125 linked to neural activity	Marcuzzo et al., 2015
	A suggestive marker of brain injury in a rat stroke model	Laterza et al., 2009
miR-127-3p	Linked to neuronal loss, neurodegeneration and apoptosis in primary cultured spinal neurones	He et al., 2016a
miR-143-3p	Found to have a negative role on myoblast differentiation with increasing levels associated with muscle denervation	Du et al., 2016
	Increased levels found in serum of sALS patients	Waller et al., 2017
	Increased levels linked to an anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic role	Borralho et al., 2009; He et al., 2016b; Li et al., 2017
	Found to be induced in rat neurones, associated in the regulation of glucose metabolism in experimental ischemic injury	Zeng et al., 2017
miR-125b-2-3p	A known regulator of glia, associated with astrogliosis	Smirnova et al., 2005; Pogue et al., 2010
	Associated with microgliosis and linked to neuroinflammation in ALS	Parisi et al., 2013
	Found in the brain of ALS mice at late stage disease along with miR-124 and miR-9 linked to corticospinal tract degeneration in ALS	Marcuzzo et al., 2015
	Circulating miR-125b and miR-9 was downregulated with miR-9 in an APP/PS1 transgenic mouse model of AD. A potential biomarker	Hong et al., 2017
miR-9-5p	A brain enriched miRNA	Meza-Sosa et al., 2014
	Found in the brain of ALS mice at late stage disease with miR-124 and miR-125 linked to neural activity	Marcuzzo et al., 2015
	Circulating miR-9 and miR-125b was downregulated in an APP/PS1 transgenic mouse model of AD. A potential biomarker	Hong et al., 2017
miR-27b-3p	A highly expressed miRNA in the brain linked to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia	Moreau et al., 2011
miR-486-5p	Dysregulated in many human cancers, acting as a tumor suppressor	Oh et al., 2011; Peng et al., 2013
miR-16-5p	Reduced levels identified in a murine model of early-onset AD, linking reduced levels with increased levels of amyloid precursor protein (APP)	Liu et al., 2012
	A neuroprotective role in prion infected mice	Majer et al., 2012
miR-28-3p	Circulating miR-28-3p was upregulated in an APP/PS1 transgenic mouse model of AD. A potential biomarker	Hong et al., 2017
miR-146a	An immune-mediated miRNA, a key regulator of the innate immune response increased in active MS lesions in humans	Junker et al., 2009
miR-150-5p	An immune-mediated miRNA, circulating miR-150-5p increased in CSF of MS patients and serum of MG patients	Punga et al., 2015; Bergman et al., 2016
miR-378a-3p	Involved in myogenesis and regulation of skeletal muscle growth, promoting myoblast differentiation and inhibiting proliferation	Wei et al., 2016
miR-142-5p	An important regulator of cell survival. In a neuronal ischemic injury cell model miR-142-5p was induced by neurones. Inhibition of miR-142-5p reduced cell injury and oxidative stress in the model by upregulating the Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway	Wang et al., 2017
miR-92a-3p	miR-92a-3p linked to white matter impairment and post-stroke depression	He et al., 2017

CNS, central nervous system; AD, Alzheimer's disease; sALS, sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; MS, multiple sclerosis; MG, myasthenia gravis.