The levels of miRNAs decline with different kinetics in serum.

<p>Serum (n ≥ 3) was separated from blood cells directly after blood drawing and incubated at room temperature for different durations (0, 1, 3, 5 or 24 h) before extraction of the RNA. Levels of five different microRNAs (miR-1, miR-16, miR-21, miR-122 and miR-142-3p) were analyzed by reverse transcription real-time PCR and normalized to their initial values. To test for statistically significant differences between the five microRNAs a Kruskal-Wallis test with multiple Dunn comparison and Bonferroni-Holm correction was performed. This revealed significant differences between miR-16 and miR-122(P < 0.001) and miR-21 and miR-122(P < 0.01).