Figure 4

Clustering analysis of miRNA expression according to clinical outcome and BRAF tumor status. The heat map illustrates the result of the two-way hierarchical clustering of pre-selected miRNAs and samples. The color scale illustrates the relative expression level or changes in expression level across all samples: red color represents an expression level above the mean and blue color represents expression lower than the mean. Patients #5, 7, and 8 had progressive disease (PD), patient #6 and 9 had partial responses (PR), and the remaining patients had stable disease (SD). (A) Clustering was performed with pre-treatment expression values (LMRs) for miRNAs with t-test p-value < 0.01 and effect size > 0.5. (B) Clustering was performed with changes in miRNA expression (dLMRs) with combination treatment for miRNAs whose t-test p-value < 0.04 and effect size > 0.5. (C) Clustering was performed with pre-treatment expression values (LMRs) for miRNAs whose t-test p-value < 0.02 and effect size > 0.5, using p-values obtained from two-tailed t-tests comparing the average expression level for patients with BRAF mutant melanomas (in orange) with those who had wild-type BRAF melanomas.