Fig. 1

Possible ways to release circulating miRNAs; 3 pathways including extracellular vesicles, RNA-binding proteins and/or transfer through cell gap junction are involved. In addition, the topology of the network was analyzed based on degree metrics in order to find the most important nodes. According to the findings, 5 nodes with large degrees in our large network (i.e., > 9, see green nodes) including BCL2, VEGFA, CCND1, PTEN and MET were identified as potential hub nodes, (Additional file 1, and Fig. 2)