To evaluate the role of microRNAs in the persistent (120h) changes in gene expression, paired DE microRNAs and associated 120h DE targets were assessed with IPA's "Core Analysis" to elucidate the predominant biological functions represented in these data. (See Fig 1 and Methods section "Statistics and Bioinformatics" for details.) Remarkably, hepatotoxicity-related annotations ("liver cancer", "liver carcinoma", "liver hyperplasia/proliferation") were the top toxicological functions found in several NAC and PFC datasets. In the NAC 8hDEmiR/120hDEtargets dataset, "CNS cell death" showed a strong negative z score (-2.3) while in the PFC 0hDEmiR/120hDEtargets dataset, several cognition-related annotations showed strong positive z scores ("formation of cellular protrusions", 2.2; "growth of neurites", 2.2; "cognition", 2.1; "learning", 2.6; "memory", 2.0). "Organization of actin cytoskeleton" and "formation of lymphocytes" were the most significant annotations in AMY, occurring in the 0hDEmiR/120hDEtargets dataset with z scores of 1.98 and 2.0, respectively.
