The TGF-β signaling pathway is predicted to be targeted by many significantly differentially expressed miRNAs.

<p>(a) Multiple miRNAs including novel miRNA candidates are predicted to target each of the genes implicated in the pathway, and each miRNA is predicted to target multiple genes in the pathway. The upregulated (> 2.0-fold) miRNAs are shown in red, and the downregulated (< 2.0-fold) miRNAs are shown in black. (b) MiRNA-34 family members are generally down-regulated in late-gestational fetal KCs. With the exception of miR-34a-5p, the expression levels of miR-34 family members in late-gestational fetal KCs were significantly lower (p value <0.05). MiR-34a-3p, miR-34b-5p, and miR-34c-3p changed by more than 2.0-fold. The read number of miRNAs was normalized to the total number of high-quality reads that matched the human genome from each sample. (c) MiRNA-34 family members suppress genes that are important members of the TGF-β pathway. TGF-β3, TGF-βRI, TGF-βRII, SMAD3, SMAD4 and SAR1A are involved in this regulation.