We found that, of the top 10 miRNAs identified by our models, 8 miRNA have been shown to regulate BCL2 expression in prior studies (miR-22-5p [92–94], miR-21-5p [95–100], miR-365a-3p [88, 101], miR-135b-5p [102], miR-7-2-3p [103, 104], miR-221-3p [94], miR-21-3p [95–100], and miR-7-5p [103, 104]), one targets p53 which targets BCL2 (miR-33a-3p [86, 105, 106]), and one (miR-3653-3p) has very little available information except that its expression has been observed to increase while BCL2 expression decreases when comparing cervical cancer to tumour-adjacent tissue [107] (Fig. 3). This evidence concerns the gene BCL2 and neoplasm.