Figure 1.

This workflow diagram illustrates the steps of the miRNA analysis of PTC patients. We reviewed 161 anonymized PTC cases of the tissue archives, from which 129 were selected as eligible based on histopathological evaluation. A total of 258 thyroid tissue samples (129-129 tumor and control samples, respectively) related to these cases were then collected and subjected to sectioning. Then, the sections underwent miRNA isolation and quality control of RNA concentrations, leading to the exclusion of samples being evaluated as inapplicable isolate specimens. The remaining samples were then subjected to sequencing, after which a bioinformatic and statistical assessment was conducted on the data in the context of 2656 different miRNA types in total. Bioinformatic evaluation led to the further exclusion of 1 sample pair (both tumor and control) due to insufficient sequencing yield detected. Finally, we were able to establish those miRNAs which show significantly different expression patterns in PTC and non-PTC tissues related to 118 patients in total.