Characteristics of the patients.

<p>Characteristics of the patients.</p

Real-time RT-PCR-analysis of miRNAs from carotid endarterectomy specimen from patients with asymptomatic and symptomatic plaques and from unaffected specimen from the internal mammary artery of healthy controls.

<p><b>(A) unchanged expression, (B) down-regulated expression vs. control and (C) up-regulate expression vs. control.</b> Snord44 was used as housekeeping control for normalization and the relative miRNA expression was calculated using the 2^-ΔΔCT method. con = control, asP = endarterectomy samples of asymptomatic plaques, sP = endarterectomy samples of symptomatic plaques. Data are presented as box plot with median (25^th/75^th percentiles) and whiskers (10^th/90^th percentiles). *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001 vs. con, ^#P<0.05, ^##P<0.01 vs. sP</p

Intersection graph shows miRNAs which were significantly up- (↑) or down-regulated (↓) in endarterectomy specimen from patients with asymptomatic and symptomatic plaques vs. unaffected specimen from the internal mammary artery of healthy controls.

<p>Significant different expression between asymptomatic and symptomatic plaque samples is indicated by an asterisk (*).</p

Target genes of the selected miRNAs and their impact on atherosclerosis.

<p>Target genes of the selected miRNAs and their impact on atherosclerosis.</p