Most cfs-miRNAs remained in the supernatant and were dramatically degraded by intense protease K digestion.

<p>The amount of miRNAs in the supernatant (A) was normalized to the seminal plasma. Horizontal lines within the boxes denote the median (n = 6). The boxes and whiskers represent intervals between the 25th to 75th percentiles, and the 2.5th to 97.5th percentiles, respectively. For protease K digestion (B), at each time point, the supernatant incubated with 0.5% (w/v) protease K (circle dots) or not (square dots) was subjected to miRNA quantification. The amounts at time 0 were taken as 1.0.