Mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells after 2, 3 or 4 days of inducible genetic deletion of Dicer1

To investigate the suitable normalization for miRNA arrays from samples with global miRNA decrease. Our comparisons of five preprocess steps performed at the probe level demonstrated that the use of cyclic loess relying on non-miRNA small RNAs present on the Affymetrix platform significantly improved specificity and sensitivity of detection of decreased miRNAs. In this work, we analyzed the miRNA profiles of samples with global miRNA decrease using Affymetrix miRNA microarrays, following the inducible genetic deletion of Dicer1. We also analyzed previously published miRNA profiling in cancer samples with global miRNA decrease.