Fig. 1

HOTAIR was variably overexpressed in PTC tissues and cell lines and associated with survival probability. A HOTAIR expression in PTC tissues and corresponding adjacent normal thyroid tissues were obtained from TCGA database and specifically compared. B Kaplan–Meier survival analysis revealed patients with high HOTAIR expression (n = 96) have decreased overall survival comparing to ones with low HOTAIR levels (n = 417). Cut off value: 0.4078 C Relative HOTAIR expression was measured by real-time qPCR and compared between four PTC cell lines (n = 3). Data are presented as means ± SD. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to compare HOTAIR levels between PTC tissues and adjacent normal thyroid tissues. Independent Student T-test for comparing HOTAIR levels among PTC cell lines. Log-rank test was used to compare survival probability. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001