Fig. 3

The whole blood relative expression levels of four miRNAs examined by microarray and qRT-PCR are similar in patients with NPC. By taking the mean value of the miRNA expression levels examined by using the microarray (30 samples) and quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) (10 samples) (2^−ΔΔCt values) in HS samples as reference value respectively, the relative fold expression of miR-188-5p (a), miR-4790-3p (b), miR-3615 (c), and miR-5583-5p (d) examined by microarray and qRT-PCR in NPC samples were calculated based on the respective reference values and showed no significant differences (all P > 0.05), which indicated that the data obtained by the microarray is reliable