Tissue samples were ground in liquid nitrogen using mortar and pestle, followed by homogenization in
Ribozol (N580-CA, Amresco) using a polytron homogenizer. Pelleted cultured cells were re-suspended in
Ribozol. RNA was isolated by adding
chloroform (C2432, Sigma) to the tissue/cell-
Ribozol suspension following the manufacturer’s directions. The RNA was resuspended in 20 µL nuclease free water (
AM9939, Ambion). RNA quality and quantity was assessed using a
QIAxcel Advanced System (Qiagen) and
QIAxcel RNA QC Kit v2.0 (Qiagen). From 1 µg of RNA as a template first-strand cDNA was synthesized using
qScript cDNA supermix (CA101414-104, Quanta Biosciences). The reverse transcriptase reaction sequence consisted of incubation at 25 °C for 5 min, followed by incubation at 42 °C for 30 min and reverse transcriptase enzyme inactivation by incubation at 85 °C for 5 min. Resulting cDNA samples were stored at −20 °C until further analysis.
Perez L.J., Rios L., Trivedi P., D’Souza K., Cowie A., Nzirorera C., Webster D., Brunt K., Legare J.F., Hassan A., Kienesberger P.C, & Pulinilkunnil T. (2017). Validation of optimal reference genes for quantitative real time PCR in muscle and adipose tissue for obesity and diabetes research. Scientific Reports, 7, 3612.