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. 2013 Feb 28;8(2):e58014. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058014

Figure 5. Circulating miR-21 is a potential biomarker of kidney fibrosis.

Figure 5

(A, B) Circulating miR-21 levels are not affected by patient gender or age. (C, D) miR-21 circulating levels are increased in patients with high grade of Interstitial Fibrosis/Tubular Atrophy grade 3 (IF/TA grade 3). MiR-16 was used as normalizer. (E) Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis displaying the diagnostic power in predicting severe kidney fibrosis (IF/TA grade 3) of circulating miR-21 levels (area under the curve (AUC): 0.891). (F) Significant correlation (p<0.003, R = −0.451) between circulating miR-21 and glomerular filtration rate (based on MDRD formula) in patients with various grade of kidney fibrosis is shown. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. ** p<0.01.