Fig 2: Association between BRAF/miR-17 ratio and clinicopathological features. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests were applied. The significance level was set at p < 0.05

Fig 3: Immunohistochemical staining of colonic adenocarcinoma for BRAF protein showed aberrant cytoplasmic expression in the adjacent non-neoplastic colonic mucosa ((A) × 200). Colonic adenocarcinoma did not express staining for BRAF protein ((B) × 400), colonic adenocarcinoma expressed diffuse strong cytoplasmic staining ((C) × 200), while other colonic adenocarcinoma showed diffuse strong cytoplasmic staining associated nuclear staining for BRAF protein ((D) × 400).

Fig 4: The relative expression level of BRAF and MIR17 genes in colorectal cancer specimens compared to control tissues. Values are presented as median (Q1-Q3). The Mann-Whitney U test was applied for p-value calculation

Fig 5: Kaplan–Meier survival curves for overall (right panel) and disease-free survival (left panel) according to BRAF expression (0: blue (-ve BRAF), 1: green (BRAF overexpression)). Log Rank test (Mantel–Cox) was used.