Table 1.

Relevant miRNAs involved in different parasitic diseases^a

Disease	Parasite	miRNAs	Target genes	Biological mechanism	Sources	Ref
Malaria	P. falciparum	miR-451 ↑	PKA-R	Regulation of erythropoiesis	RBCs	(Xue et al. 2008; LaMonte et al. 2013; Chamnanchanunt et al. 2015)
		miR-223 ↑	Unknown
		let-7i ↑	REX1	Red cell remodeling
		miR-146a ↓	IRAK1 and TRAF6	Control TLR-receptor signaling	Placental samples	(Van Loon et al. 2019; Taganov et al. 2006)
	P. vivax	miR-451 ↓	PKA-R	Regulation of erythropoiesis	RBCs and plasma	(Chamnanchanunt et al. 2015)
		miR-16 ↓	Unknown
		miR-221 ↓			Bone marrow	(Baro et al. 2017)
		miR-222 ↓
		miR-24 ↓
		miR-191 ↓
		miR-144 ↑
		miR-150 ↑
Leishmaniasis	L. major	miR-9 ↑	NFKB1	Control TLR-receptor signaling	Macrophages	(Guerfali et al. 2008; Bazzoni et al. 2009; Lemaire et al. 2013)
		miR-132 ↑
		miR-155 ↑	Myd88 and TRIF
		miR-187 ↑	Unknown
		miR-146a ↑	TRAF6, IRAK1
		let-7a ↑	CCL2, CCL5, CXCL10, CXCL11, and CXCL12	Inhibits macrophages stimulation
		miR-25 ↑
		miR-26a ↑
		miR-132 ↑
		miR-140 ↑
	L. braziliens	miR-361-3p ↑	TNF, GZMB, and FLG2	Worsening of tissue damage	Skin biopsies sample	(Lago et al. 2018)
		miR-140-3p ↑	NKG7
		miR-193b ↓	CD40	Regulation of inflammatory response		(Nunes et al. 2018)
		miR-671 ↑	TNFR
	L. infantum	miR-210 ↓	Procaspase-3	Inhibition of cell apoptosis	Macrophages	(Lemaire et al. 2013)
		miR-346 ↑	TAP1, RFX1, and BCAP31	Modulation of an immune response		(Diotavelli et al. 2018)
	L.donovani	miR-21 ↓	SMAD7	Regulation of TGF-β signaling	Monocytes	(Geraci et al. 2015)
		miR-146b-5p ↑	TRAF6
		miR-30a-3p ↑	BECN1	Inhibition of autophagic mechanism	Monocytes and macrophages	(Singh et al. 2016)
		miR-122 ↓	DICER1	Alteration of lipid metabolism	Huh7 cells	(Ghosh et al. 2013)
Amoebiasis	E. hystolytica	miR-526b-5p ↑	XIAP, BAK1, BNIP3L	Induces cell cycle arrest, tumor suppression, and apoptosis	Epithelial colon cells	(Lopez-Rosas et al. 2019)
		miR-643 ↑	XIAP, BCL2L1, BCL2L10, BCL2L11, BCL2L14, API5
		miR-615-5p ↑	BCL2L1, BCLAF1, BMF, AIFM3, AATK
		miR-525 ↑	BCL2L1, BLC2L13, BAG3, BAG1, XIAP, CASP7, BMF
		miR-150 ↑	BCL2L2, NAIF1, CASP7, CASP8, AIFM3, AIFM2, CFLAR
		miR-409-3p ↓	BCL2, BCL2L11, BCL2L15
Chagas Disease	T.cruzi	miR-208a ↑	GATA4 and GJA5	Regulation of TGF-β signaling	Plasma	(Linhares-Lacerda et al. 2018)
		miR-19a-3p ↑	NPPB	Induces cardiomyocyte hypertrophy	Serum and heart biopsy sample	(Nonaka et al. 2019)
		miR-29b-3p ↑
		miR-30a-5p ↑
		miR-199b-5p ↑			Heart biopsy sample
		miR-21-5p ↑	COL1A1	Regulation of TGF-β signaling
Schistosomiasis	S. japonicum	miR-150-5p ↑	KANK4, DRD1, and MT1H	Actin reorganization and cell contractility	Liver sample	(Cabantous et al. 2017)
		miR-146b-5p ↑	Unknown	Regulation of lipid metabolism
		miR-143-3p ↑	PL1N1 and VNN1	Induces late fibrosis
		miR-199a-3p ↑		Accumulation of triglycerides
		miR-10a-5p ↑	KANK4 and VNN1	Regulation of TGF-β signaling
		miR-4521 ↑	CTNNA3	Reorganization of extracellular matrix
		miR-31-5p ↑	Unknown	Live fibrosis progression
		miR-222-3p ↑	KANK4 and SLC39A8
		miR-221-3p ↑	DRD1
		miR-663b ↓	GBP5	Oxidative stress damage
		Bantam*	Unknown	Unknown	Serum	(Meningher et al. 2016)
		miR-2c-3p*
		miR-3488*
		miR-2a-5p*
Toxoplasmosis	T. gondii	miR-125 ↑	Unknown	Inhibition of apoptosis	Macrophages	(Cai et al. 2013, 2014)
		miR-27b ↑
		miR-30c ↑
		miR19a ↑	BIM
		miR-19b ↑
		miR-20a ↑
		miR-17 ~ 92 cluster ↑			HFF	(Zeiner et al. 2010)
		miR-106b ~ 25 cluster ↑	Unknown
		miR-146a ↑	IRAK1 and TRAF6	Control TLR-receptor signaling	HFF-Me49 infected cells	(Cannella et al. 2014)
		miR-146a ↓			HHF-RH infected cells
		miR-132 ↑	APAF1, KRAS, MAPK3, and PPP2R5E	Regulation of cell apoptosis and immune response	Neuroepithelial cells	(Ngô et al. 2017; Xiao et al. 2014)
Cryptosporidiosis	C. parvum	let-7 family ↓	SNAP23 and SOCS4	Activation of TLR4/ NF-kB signaling	Biliary epithelial cells	(Hu et al. 2010, 2013)
		miR-27b ↑	KSRP			(Zhou et al. 2012)
		miR-98 ↓	SOCS4	Regulation of cytokine signaling		(Hu et al. 2010; Sato et al. 2017)
		miR-34b-5p ↓	ELAVL1, RAB10, RAB14	Regulation of cell apoptosis and immune response	HCT-8 cells	(Wang et al. 2019)
		miR-3591-3p ↓	ELK4, SOS2, TAB2, DAXX, FGF14, MAPK3
		miR-18b-3p ↓	Unknown
		miR-3976 ↓
Clonorchiasis	C. sinensis	miR373 ↑	MMP9	Modulation of cell adhesion, migration, invasion, and metastasis	HuCCT1 cells and H69 cells	(Pak et al. 2014)
		miR24 ↑	PTP
		miR342-5p ↑	AKT1	Activation of proinflammatory mediators
		miR181d ↑	CDH13 and RASSF1	Inactivation of tumor suppressor genes via hypermethylation
		miR31 ↑	LAST2 and PPP2R2A	Inhibition of cancer prevention pathways
		miR185 ↑	PTEN and PTPN13
		miR136 ↑	Unknown	Cell proliferation and inhibition of tumor suppression
		miR-95 ↑
		miR-93 ↑
		miR-153 ↑
		miR-16-2 ↑
		miR-195 ↑		Suppression of cell growth
		miR-199a-3p ↑	CAV2	Increases the proliferative and survival cell activities
		let7i ↓	TLR4, RAS, MYC, and HMGA2	Inhibition of proliferation and differentiation of tumor cells
		let7a ↓
		miR-124 ↓	STAT3 and EZH2	Inhibition of cell proliferation. Induction of apoptosis, and suppression of tumor growth	HuCCT1, H69, HepG-2, and gastric cancer cells
Echinococcosis	E. granulosus	let-7g-5p ↑	IL-13, IL-10, and IL-6	Proliferation and activation of macrophages, inflammation, apoptosis and oxidative damage	Whole blood samples	(Mariconti et al. 2019)
		let-7a-5p ↑
		miR-26a-5p ↑	TMEM184B	Increases the expression of type I IFN
		miR-26b-5p ↑	PTEN	Modulation of NF-κB pathway
		miR-195-5p ↑	BCL2	Promotion of apoptosis
		miR-16-5p ↑
		miR-30c-5p ↑	Unknown	Regulation of the innate immunity, type I IFN signaling
		miR-223-3p ↑	GZMB and HDAC2
		egr-miR-71*	Unknown	Unknown	Plasma	(Alizadeh et al. 2020)
		egr-let-7*
		miR-19↓	COL1A1 and COL3A	Suppression of cell proliferation by blocking signal transmission in the TGF-β pathway	LX-2 cells and liver tissue	(Zhang et al. 2016)
	E. multilocularis	miR-483-3p ↑	LBR	Promotes wound healing and cancer progression	Plasma	(Ren et al. 2019)

*Parasite derived miRNAs

^↑Indicates upregulated

^↓Indicates downregulated