Figure 1.

Study design and analysis workflow. (A). Serum samples were collected from acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and transient ischemic attack (TIA) patients within 24 h of clinical diagnosis, to purify circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) for transcriptomic analysis by RNA-Seq. Stringent analyses criteria enabled identification of differentially regulated circulating miRNAs in AIS patients compared to TIA patients. Downstream analyses for the gene targets of identified miRNA panel were performed to highlight the molecular pathways and networks affected in AIS. (B). The study population comprised TIA (n = 61) and AIS (n = 191) patients who were randomly divided into discovery and validation cohorts for identification of replicated, differentially regulated circulating miRNAs in AIS patients compared to TIA patients.