Fig. 1
miR-541 is downregulated in the liver tissues and sera of patients with liver cirrhosis and is associated with the liver function and prognosis of patients. (A) Real-time PCR analysis of miR-541 expression in the cirrhotic liver tissues and normal liver tissues, with medians of 1.24807 × 10− 5 and 9.70359 × 10− 6, respectively; p = 0.0406, non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. (B) The expression of miR-541 in the sera of healthy controls, patients with compensated cirrhosis, and patients with decompensated cirrhosis. Comparisons among the three groups were made by Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test and the following pairwise comparisons were achieved by Nemenyi test. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.001. (C) miR-541 levels were downregulated with the aggravation of the Child-Pugh classification. Comparisons among the three groups were made by Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test and the following pairwise comparisons were achieved by Nemenyi test. * p < 0.05, NS, not significant. (D and E) Statistical analysis of PT (D) and INR (E) values in patients with high and low miR-541 expression. The cut-off value to separate patients with high and low miR-541 expression was the median value in 84 cirrhotic patients. ** p < 0.01, non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. (F) Percentage of patients with or without ascites (left) and HE (right) at enrollment in the subgroup of patients with low and high miR-541 levels. * p < 0.05, *** p < 0.001 by Fisher test. (G and H) Overall survival (OS) (G) and decompensated-free survival (H) were compared between cirrhotic patients with low and high miR-541 expression using the log-rank test. The median value was used as a cut-off to separate patients with high and low miR-541 expression