by absorbance
measurement (A260) on the Nanodrop ND-1000 UV spectrometer (Thermo
Scientific, Wilmington, DE). All blood samples produced RNA concentrations
above the lower detection limit of 2 ng/μL of the NanoDrop instrument.
RNA integrity was determined by the Agilent Bioanalyzer utilizing
RNA 6000 chips (Agilent, Santa Clara, CA). All PCR runs were performed
using the ABI 7900HT SDS (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA), and
RT reactions were performed using the GeneAmp PCR System 9700 (Applied
Biosystems). Capillary gel electrophoresis was done using the Bioanalyzer
2100 instrument (Agilent).