Fig. 1.

Schematic representation and experimental design of the study. The workflow protocol of the mRNA-miRNA co-expression network analysis among Nevi, primary melanoma, and metastatic melanoma samples. Nevi refers to patients diagnosed with any abnormal, congenital formation or mark on the skin or neighboring mucosa that does not show neoplastic growth. The bioinformatic tools used along the analysis pipeline were indicated by italic square brackets []. miRNAs, microRNAs; MM, malignant melanoma; VM, vascular mimicry; EMT, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, WGCNA, weighted gene co-expression network analysis; PRISMA, preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis; PICO, population, intervention, control, and outcomes framework; GO, gene ontology; KEGG, function and kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes; STRING, the search tool for the retrieval of interacting genes; PPI, protein–protein interactive.