Metabolic syndrome case-control analysis was performed using a linear mixed-effects model: yij = µ+τgender(i)+ηcaseControl(i)+αbatch(i,j)+γ*agei+κi+εij. The analysis was performed separately for each tissue. Subjects are indexed by i ∈ {1…70}, aliquots are indexed by j ∈ {I,2}. yij is the miRNA expression level of one of the miRNA probe for subject i and aliquot j. µ is overall mean expression level. τgender(i) is a fixed effect corresponding to gender for subject i, where gender(⋅) is a function mapping individual i to it's gender ∈ {male, female}. ηcaseControl(i) is a fixed effect representing case/control status of subject i, where caseControl(⋅) is a function mapping individual i to it's case/control status for metabolic syndrome ∈ {case, control}, γ is a fixed effect incorporating the effect of age, αbatch(i,j) is a fixed effect included to accommodate an experimental batch effect (96-well plate format), where the function batch(⋅) is a function mapping each sample to a batch (plate) ∈ {1,2,3}. The κi are independently Gaussian distributed with mean zero and variance σ2 κ, for subject i representing inter individual variability. εij is the residual error
