MiRNA profiling identifies differential miRNA expression in lungs of allergic mice.

<p>Expression of 611 miRNAs was investigated in whole lung samples by microarray. 228 miRNAs were detected in the lungs, with 29 altered between experimental groups (A). Venn diagram of statistically-significant differentially expressed miRNAs (fold-change ≥2) between PBS/PBS (PBS) and OVA/OVA, PBS/PBS and OVA/OVA DEX (DEX) and OVA/OVA and OVA/OVA DEX (B). Hierarchical cluster analysis of treatment conditions based on differentially expressed miRNAs. Heat-map representation of normalised expression levels for differentially expressed miRNAs. The boxes in colour indicate the normalised intensities of miRNA expression, with blue indicating low and red indicating high expression (C). qPCR detection of 6 altered miRNAs (D) and two DEX-responsive miRNAs (E). Expression is normalised relative to control RNA sno202. Fold changes for selected miRNAs is graphed for both microarray and qPCR analysis (OVA/OVA versus PBS/PBS) (F). Error bars represent SEM (n = 6 animals/group). Mann-Whitney test was used to compare two groups with another. P values of less than 0.05 are indicated by * and less than 0.01 by ** and less than 0.001 by ***.