Skip to main content
Figure 3 | Silence

Figure 3

From: Target gene expression levels and competition between transfected and endogenous microRNAs are strong confounding factors in microRNA high-throughput experiments

Figure 3

Microarrays but not proteomics are biased towards detecting differential expression among highly expressed genes. Cumulative density plots of log-ratio values for miRNA targets grouped by gene expression levels in (A) the Grimson and (B) the Selbach datasets. (C) Barplots show the ratio of the six sub-groups of mRNA expression levels subdivided by predicted exogenous and endogenous miRNA targeting in the Grimson and Selbach datasets for all genes ('All') and down-regulated genes ('Down-reg' P < 0.01; log ratio (lr) < -0.01). (D) Scatter plots show log2 enrichment of down-regulated genes compared with all genes for the six sub-groups of mRNA expression levels in all studied datasets. Lines and shaded grays show respectively linear fits and standard errors for the microarray (red dots) and proteomics (blue triangles) experiments; P-values (lower left) are unadjusted P-values from Pearson correlation tests. Data points based on a single gene were excluded. The regression lines show that in the microarray but not the proteomics experiments, down-regulated genes are enriched among highly expressed genes and that this enrichment depends on gene expression levels. miRNA, microRNA; mRNA, messenger RNA.

Back to article page