Finally, we determined whether miR-375 expression is inversely associated with HOXB3. When the relative expression of miR-375 was plotted against with HOXB3, a moderate inverse correlation between miR-375 and HOXB3 was found in 102 patients with AML (R = − 0.249 and P = 0.012, Fig. 3i). Here, HOXB3 is linked to acute myeloid leukemia.