Figure 1

Effect of phase separation on miRNA recovery using QIAGEN spin column-based purification kits. The recovery of three different amounts of spike-in sequences (UniSp2, circles; UniSp4, squares; UniSp5, triangles) was compared by real-time RT-PCR for unspun TRIzol-plasma lysate (monophase) and TRIzol-plasma aqueous phase as kit inputs. Boxplots represent aggregated Cq values from the three spike-ins, with whiskers at the minimum and maximum values, and the line drawn at the median. Individual datapoints are included to show spread (n = 6 for each sequence; total n = 18). While the difference in yields was not statistically significant, using the aqueous phase showed a trend of decreased sample-to-sample variance.