Fig. 1

Expression levels of selected miRNAs in a cohort of patients with brain tumors. Box-plot diagrams of relative miRNA expression levels in pre-operative serum samples from glioblastoma (GBM; n = 10), lower grade glioma (G II/III; n = 12), meningioma (M; n = 8) patients and healthy subjects (Ctrl; n = 15), assessed by qRT–PCR. Boxes define the 25th and 75th percentiles; the horizontal line into the boxes indicates the median, and bars define the minimum and maximum values. The expression levels of mature miRNAs were normalized to volume and UniSp2 spike-in RNA. Relative expression was calculated using the comparative ΔCt method. p-values (* = p ≤ 0,05; ** = p ≤ 0,01) were determined using the Mann–Whitney rank sum test