Fig. 1: Identification and validation of elevated miR-223 in the plasma of first-episode schizophrenia. | Translational Psychiatry

Fig. 1: Identification and validation of elevated miR-223 in the plasma of first-episode schizophrenia.

From: Altered expression of microRNA-223 in the plasma of patients with first-episode schizophrenia and its possible relation to neuronal migration-related genes

Fig. 1

a Heat map showing the microarray expression data for 21 significantly altered miRNAs in plasma samples from patients with first episode of schizophrenia (FES, n = 17) and healthy control subjects (CTRL, n = 17). Statistical significance was analyzed using the unpaired t-test; P < 0.05 and fold change > 1.5 were considered to indicate statistical significance. MiRNA expression is hierarchically clustered on the y-axis, and the plasma samples from patients with FES or healthy control subjects are hierarchically clustered on the x-axis. The relative miRNA expression level is depicted according to the color scale shown at the bottom, which ranges from red (denoting high expression) to green (denoting low expression). The top horizontal bar indicates the controls in blue, and patients with FES are in orange. The miRNAs with expression levels that remained significantly higher in the FES group compared to the control group after Bonferroni correction (P < 0.05) are indicated with red arrows. b Microarray expression of select miRNAs. The microarray expression levels of miR-223 (upper panel) and miR-6131 (lower panel) are shown on a logarithmic scale (CTRL, n = 17; FES, n = 17). c Validation of miRNA microarray results by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). The relative expression levels of miR-223 (upper panel) and miR-6131 (lower panel) were measured by qRT-PCR (CTRL, n = 17; FES, n = 15). d Validation of plasma miR-223 expression levels in patients with schizophrenia (SZ, n = 21) and controls (CTRL, n = 21). The validation sample size was calculated by the effect size with 80% power. The comparative threshold cycle (Ct) method was used with cel-miR-39 as an external control. The data presented are the average expression ± standard error of the mean. *P < 0.05 with respect to miRNA expression in control subjects, obtained via unpaired t-test. #P < 0.05 with respect to miRNA expression in control subjects, obtained via unpaired t-test with Bonferroni correction. CTRL controls, FES first-episode schizophrenia, SZ schizophrenia

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