Fig. 1

miRNA and mRNA expression profiles in OSCC. a–c The heat maps of DEGS from the three OSCC-related datasets; the topmost bar represented the sample type, in which blue represented normal control samples, and red represented tumor samples; the color gradation at the upper right represented gene expression, in which the color changed from red to green from the top to the bottom, suggesting gene expression changed from high to low; abscissa represented sample number and the ordinate represented gene names, each rectangle corresponds to a sample expression value. The dendrogram on the left represented cluster analysis based on differences in gene expression. d Venn analysis of the top 100 DEGs retrieved from the GSE31853, GSE74530, and GSE30784 datasets; blue indicated the GSE31853 dataset, red indicated the GSE74530 dataset, and green indicated the GSE30784 dataset; blue arrows indicated the intersection of the three datasets. e HOXC6 expression analyzed in the GSE37991 dataset; gray boxplot on the left represented HOXC6 expression in 40 normal control samples and dark gray boxplot on the right represented HOXC6 expression in 40 tumor samples with p value at the upper left. f Predicted regulatory miRNAs of HOXC6 in the four different databases. The predicted results with the highest score were selected for Venn analysis. Blue indicated the TargetScan database predicted results, red indicated the DIANA database predicted results, green indicated the mirDIP database predicted results, yellow indicated the microRNA database predicted results, and blue arrow location represented the intersection of the four database predictions. g The predicted binding sites between miR-495 and the 3′-UTR of HOXC6 by an online prediction software. h The binding of miR-495 to HOXC6 confirmed by dual-luciferase reporter assay. *p < 0.05 vs. the NC group. Data (mean ± standard deviation) were analyzed by independent sample t test. The experiment was repeated 3 times independently