To investigate the extent to which miRNA expression levels are associated with metabolic syndrome case-control status among the subjects in this study, we applied a similar model (see Materials and Methods) to that used in the analysis of tissue differential expression. The case-control analysis was performed separately for abdominal and gluteal adipose tissues. In abdominal tissue we found that 14 miRNAs were associated (FDR adjusted p-value<0.05) with metabolic syndrome case-control status (primary study). In the replication study three (21%) out of these 14 miRNAs were replicated (p-value<0.05 and directionally consistent effect), which is more than expected under the null, at the 0.05 level (p-value = 0.03 (one-sided binomial test)). The three replicated miRNAs, hsa-miR-652, hsa-miR-1179, hsa-miR-7-2*, all had lower expression levels in the case group. Furthermore, 13 out of 14 miRNAs also had coefficients that were directionally consistent across the primary and replication studies (Figure S3, Table S2). In gluteal adipose tissue, 14 miRNAs were differentially expressed (FDR adjusted p-value<0.05) between case and control groups in the primary study, but none of these replicated in the replication study. We did,
