Fig. 5: miRNA profiling of prostate cancer patients.

a–d Synchronisation ratio of miR-141-3p and miR-375-3p for patients in remission (n = 5) and patients with active prostate cancer (n = 5) detected directly from serum (a, b) and in RNA extracted from serum (c, d). Error bars represent 1 × σ obtained from 3 different nanopore measurements (n = 3). e, f Box plots of relative expression levels for miR-141-3p (e) and miR-375-3p (f) for patients in remission and with active cancer detected directly from serum, RNA extract and RT-qPCR (remission: n = 5; active: n = 5), respectively. For all boxes, the black central line represents the median, the square represents the mean, the bottom and top edges mark the 25th and 75th percentiles. The whiskers denote the intervals between 5th and 95th percentiles. Statistical significance was tested using two-tailed Student’s t-test. For miR-141-3p, ^****P < 0.0001; ^*P = 0.0166; ns, not significant, P = 0.724. For miR-375-3p, ^****P < 0.0001; ^*P = 0.0488; ns, not significant, P = 0.079. g, h Correlation between expression values measured in serum and in extracts for miR-141-3p (g) and miR-375-3p (h). Pearson’s r for miR-141-3p, r = 0.7038, P = 0.0231, and for miR-375-3p, r = 0.8217, P = 0.0035. Concentrations of miRNAs were calculated from the calibration curves in Fig. 4 and Supplementary Fig. 11. The error bars represent 1 × σ obtained from 3 different nanopore measurements (n = 3). i, j Correlation between % synchronised measured in extracts and Ct value measured using RT-qPCR for miR-141-3p (i) and miR-375-3p (j), respectively. Pearson’s r for miR-141-3p, r = −0.6346, P = 0.0485, and for miR-375-3p, r = −0.9436, P = 0.0001. Statistical significance in g–j were tested using two-tailed Student’s t-test.