Reproducibility of quantitative RT-PCR array in miRNA expression profiling and comparison with microarray analysis

Our studies demonstrated high reproducibility of TaqMan qPCR-array. Comparison between different reverse transcription reactions and qPCR-arrays performed on different days indicated that reverse transcription reactions did not introduce significant variation in the results. The use of cDNA pre-amplification increased the sensitivity of miRNA detection. Although there was variability associated with pre-amplification in low abundance miRNAs, the latter did not involve any systemic bias in the estimation of miRNA expression. Comparison between microarray and qPCR-array indicated superior sensitivity and specificity of qPCR-array.