A B S T R A C T
For the analysis of cell type-specific miRNA expression patterns qPCR is currently the method of choice
owing to its high accuracy. However, to obtain reliable results, a proper normalization strategy is an
absolute prerequisite, which is often underestimated. To demonstrate the importance of using a set of
suitable reference genes, we tested two normalization strategies by comparing gene expressions of
tissue-specific miRNA targets normalized against: (1) previously validated endogenous controls (miR92
and miR374) and (2) a commonly used miRNA reference