Fig. 1

Identification of microRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) regulating interleukin (IL)-1β expression in human gouty arthritis. a Heat map displays the most differential expression levels in the healthy control subjects (HCs; n = 3) and patients with acute gouty arthritis (GA; n = 3). The color key indicates increasing miRNA expression levels from red to green compared with HC. b Venn diagram (upper left) shows five miRNAs possibly targeting IL-1β in the peripheral white blood cells (WBCs) of patients with GA. Blue represents 184 potential miRNAs targeting human IL-1β gene as predicted by bioinformatics. Yellow represents microarray results of 158 miRNAs markedly downregulated in the WBCs of patients with GA. The expression levels of the five selected miRNAs were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in HCs (n = 10) and patients with GA (n = 10). Values are expressed as mean ± SEM of three independent experiments, each of which was run in triplicate. *P < 0.05