Fig. 4

Identification of genes under miRNA and epigenetic control. a Venn diagram showing the overlap between differentially expressed genes regulated by differential methylation and miRNA. The analysis identified 189 genes that are under multiple regulatory controls (GMCs), which means that these genes are altered at gene expression, regulatory miRNA and methylation levels. b Hierarchical interaction of GMCs depicting gene expression, miRNA and epigenetic level alterations of molecules. The nodes represent the GMCs (circles) and the regulatory miRNA molecules (V-shape) and edges depict regulatory interactions. Each gene is dual colored based on expression change (log₂FC, left side) and differential methylation (right side). Red denotes upregulation and green denotes downregulation in PDAC compared to normal. The figure also contains results from pathways enrichment analysis of (c) methylation-regulated genes and (d) miRNA-regulated genes. The y-axis represents significantly effected canonical pathways and x-axis the –log transformed Fisher’s exact test P-value. The common pathways are marked with red asterisks