Fig. 1.

Meta-analysis study design. A search for thyroid tissue gene expression profiles was performed on the online databases GEO and Array Express. It was followed by the selection of experiments and samples according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the import and elaboration of data by TRAM software, and the generation and analysis of the whole normal thyroid, histologically normal thyroid adjacent to papillary thyroid carcinoma as well as of the whole normal thyroid vs. histologically normal thyroid adjacent to papillary thyroid carcinoma transcriptome maps. PTC: papillary thyroid carcinoma.