ArticleBiology methods & protocols2019
Plasma or serum? A qualitative study on rodents and humans using high-throughput microRNA sequencing for circulating biomarkers.
Article in Biology methods & protocols, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Diagnostic Potential of Circulating miRNAs in Glioma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Pooled it
- The Potential Diagnostic Accuracy of Circulating MicroRNAs for Leukemia: A Meta-Analysis.Technology in cancer research & treatmentPooled it
- Circulating miRNAs for glioblastoma monitoring: from biofluid to clinical decision.Molecular therapy. Oncology · 2026Review
- Circulating Cell-Free miR-25-3p Is Upregulated in Brazilian Patients with Prostate Cancer and Contributes to Tumor Aggressiveness.Non-coding RNA · 2026Article
- Epigenetic regulators and inflammation antagonists in familial Mediterranean fever: the role of hsa-miR-335-5p, hsa-miR-26b-5p, hsa-miR-16-5p miRNAs and IL-36Ra levels in pathogenesis.Immunologic research · 2026Article
- Circulating MicroRNAs do not provide a diagnostic benefit over tissue biopsy in patients with brain metastases.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Determination of longitudinal Circulating levels of miR-21-5p, miR-23b-3p and miR-34a-5p in plasma of patients with glioblastoma using droplet digital PCR.Neurosurgical review · 2025Article
- Pre-analytical considerations for microRNA quantification in childhood leukemia research.Journal of biological methods · 2025Review
- Transcriptomic analysis of circulating extracellular vesicles during the perioperative period of Fontan and Glenn surgery.NPJ cardiovascular health · 2024Article
- Preanalytical, analytical and postanalytical considerations in circulating microRNAs measurement.Biochemia medica · 2024Review
- Beyond CSF and Neuroimaging Assessment: Evaluating Plasma miR-145-5p as a Potential Biomarker for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2024Article
- Differences in serum and plasma levels of microRNAs and their time-course changes after blood collection.Practical laboratory medicine · 2024Article
- Plasma microRNA expression in adolescents and young adults with endometriosis: the importance of hormone use.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2024Article
- Identification of candidate plasma miRNA biomarkers for the diagnosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Future science OA · 2024Article
- Review
- Article
- Differential microRNA expression for diagnosis and prognosis of papillary thyroid cancer.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Review
- Serum microRNAs in Systemic Sclerosis, Associations with Digital Vasculopathy and Lung Involvement.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Current challenges and best practices for cell-free long RNA biomarker discovery.Biomarker research · 2022Review
- miR-10 and Its Negative Correlation with Serum IL-35 Concentration and Positive Correlation with STAT5a Expression in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
microRNAs are small non-coding RNAs gaining interest for their potential roles as reliable biomarkers for the diagnosis and therapeutics of numerous pathologies, ranging from cancer to neurodegenerative or psychiatric disorders. Indeed, microRNAs are present in various accessible biofluids, including peripheral blood, and specific dysregulation of their expression may be associated with these different pathological conditions. microRNAs can be isolated from plasma or serum for sequencing with commercial kits. However, these two biofluids might exhibit some differences in their microRNA contents, due notably to the coagulation process occurring during serum collection. It remains unclear from previous studies and commercial recommendations which blood fraction is preferable. Because of the small amount of circulating microRNAs in a given blood volume, this question appears crucial for qualitative and quantitative optimization of microRNA profiling, especially in animal models used for investigating the pathophysiological relevancy of this approach. We therefore evaluated the efficiency of RNA isolation and microRNA levels from plasma and sera isolated from rats and humans, with a widely used extraction kit (QIAGEN miRNeasy), and assessed microRNA quality and quantity with high-throughput sequencing. Fewer reads with length corresponding to non-miRNAs sequences were observed in plasma than in serum, both from rats and humans. Moreover, rat plasma produced twice as many aligned reads compared to sera, as well as more aligned reads corresponding to microRNAs (84.6% against 38.7%), differences that were not find in human samples. Our results, therefore, clearly indicate that plasma should be preferred for miRNA investigations, particularly for translational studies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.