Summary

Characteristics of the systematic review and the selected studies

With the systematic review we found 27 studies in the main databases of expression data: ArrayExpress and GEO. A selection of six studies passed the filters proposed: GSE120584 and GSE46579, that collected data from blood samples, and GSE153284, GSE157239, GSE16759 and GSE48552 of them from brain samples.

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Distribution of samples in studies

	Study type	Tissue	Platform	Samples	Control	AD
GSE153284	Non-coding RNA profiling by high throughput sequencing	Brain (Prefrontal cortex)	GPL11154	10	4	6
GSE157239	Non-coding RNA profiling by array	Brain (Temporal cortex)	GPL21572	16	8	8
GSE16759	Non-coding RNA profiling by array	Brain (Parietal lobe)	GPL8757	8	4	4
GSE48552	Non-coding RNA profiling by high throughput sequencing	Brain (Prefrontal cortex)	GPL11154	12	6	6
GSE120584	Non-coding RNA profiling by array	Blood (Serum)	GPL21263	1309	288	1021
GSE46579	Non-coding RNA profiling by high throughput sequencing	Blood (Whole blood)	GPL11154	70	22	48

miRNA meta-analysis summary

The meta-analysis was performed separating the information based on the tissue studied: blood or brain. The integrated information revealed differentially expressed miRNAs in females and in males. Most of the altered miRNAs detected were present in the blood analyses, but there were also results in the brain studies.

	miRNAs meta-analysed	Females up	Females down	Males up	Males down
Brain	855	1	5	2	2
Blood	314	16	0	18	4

Functional enrichment summary

A functional enrichment of the Biological Process terms from the Gene Ontology (GO) returned different terms in females and in males, hinting at the differences in the processes regulated by miRNAs in the disease between the sexes.

	BP terms analysed	Females up	Females down	Males up	Males down
Brain	2917	0	0	0	0
Blood	2873	4	2	9	342