eQTL analysis was performed for miRNAs located on chromosome 1–22. We consider cis-eQTLs in our analysis, cis-located SNP variants were defined as +/− 50 kilo-bases from miRNA genomic location. 729 miRNAs have at least one cis-located SNP, in total 9346 miRNA eQTL models were evaluated. The eQTLs were modelled using a linear mixed-effects model: yij = µ+β*snpi+τgender(i)+ηcaseControl(i)+αbatch(i,j)+γ*agei+κi+εij. Subjects are indexed by i ∈ {1…69}, 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. β is a fixed effect representing the genetic effect of the SNP variant, where snpi is a function mapping individual i to the number of copies of the reference allele {0, 1, 2}. τgender(i) is a fixed effect corresponding to gender for subject i, where gender(⋅) is a function mapping individual i to 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,
