The KEGG database [39] was used to provide an overall functional annotation based on detected miRNA-mRNA associations in each tissue. MiRNAs found to have a significant association with their mRNA target set using the above outlined gene set enrichment test (FDR adjusted p-value<0.05) were included in this analysis. KEGG terms corresponding to all mRNA targets for these miRNAs were aggregated within each tissue type. To test for significant enrichment of individual KEGG terms, a Fisher exact test was applied, comparing against the overall universe of KEGG terms in the full set of mRNAs profiled. P-values were subsequently adjusted for multiple testing by FDR correction [58].
