Systematic evaluation of qPCR, NanoString and miRNA-Seq for microRNA biomarker discovery in human biofluids

Recently, there has been growing interest in identifying cell-free circulating miRNAs that can serve as non-invasive biomarkers for early detection of disease or selection of treatment options. However, quantifying miRNA levels in biofluids is technically challenging due to their low abundance. Using reference samples, we performed a cross-platform evaluation in which miRNA profiling was performed using three different platforms: qPCR, NanoString and miRNA-Seq.