To evaluate miRNA expression levels, RNA was transcribed into cDNA using M-MuLV reverse transcriptase (Enzymatics, Beverly, MA, USA) as directed by the manufacturer with the Gene Amp PCR system 9700 (Applied Biosystems). RT-qPCR was performed using the ViiA 7 real-time PCR system (Applied Biosystems) with 2 × PCR Master Mix (Arraystar).
The reaction conditions of the 2 experiments were as follows: incubation at 95°C for 10 min, incubation at 95°C for 10 s, and incubation at 60°C for 60 s, with 40 cycles. Expression levels were calculated with a 2−ΔΔCt method (18 (link)) and normalized with U6. Primer sequences are shown in