Table 5.

Bioinformatic analyses of miRNAs altered in maternal serum or correlating with hPL in FGR pregnancies

miRNA ID	FGR altered miRNA (QPCR data)	Sexual dimorphism (Current dataset)	Correlation with biochemical marker of placental dysfunction (hPL)	Selected gene targets Evidence level: -Strong (bold) -Weak (unbolded) -Predicted (italics)
miR-28-5p MIMAT0000085	Yes	↓in FGR females (QPCR)	No	CDKN1A, MAPK1, IGFI, RAP1B, MAD2L1, SLC7A5, CCND3 PAPPA, CASP3
miR-29c-3p MIMAT0000681	No	↑ males in microarray  + ve correlation [hPL] males	Yes R2 = 0.467 p < 0.05	CDK6, BCL2, MMP2, PTEN, AKT3, LAMC1, LAMC2, DNMT3A, COL1A, COL3A, FBA, FBB, FBG, PDGFRB VEGFA
miR-301a-3p MIMAT0000688	Yes	↓ in FGR males (QPCR)	No	BCL2L11, PAI-1, RUNX3, PTEN, NKRF, TGFβR2, DNMT1, ESR1, XIAP, IGF2R, PUMA, SLC6A6, IGF1, PPARG
miR-454-3p MIMAT0003885	Yes	+ ve correlation [hPL] females	Yes R2 = 0.511 p < 0.01	SMAD4, TGFβR2, ALK7, CXCL12, TP53, IGF2R, CCND2, MAPK1, XIAP, PARP1, SLC38A2, SLC6A6, IGF1, PPARG, DICER1, H19

Potentially relevant gene targets selected from literature-based databases. Bold = experimentally validated as a target using STRONG methods (reporter assay, Western blot, qPCR); unbold = experimentally validated as a target using WEAK methods (microarray, NGS, pSILAC, other); italics = predicted target but not experimentally validated. FGR fetal growth restriction, hPL human placental lactogen. Correlations analysed using Spearman test