Initial denaturation was done by heating for 1 min at 95°C followed by 40 cycles of denaturation at 95°C for 5 seconds and annealing /extension at 60°C for 30 seconds in 7500 Fast & 7500 Real-Time PCR System (Applied Biosystem, Themo Fisher Scientific, Life Technologies Corporation, USA). Melting curve analysis was done after amplification to confirm the specificity of the product and to exclude the presence of primer–dimers.
The relative gene expression analysis was done by Delta Delta cycle threshold (DDCT) method, and the average DCT of the healthy volunteers for each target gene was used as the calibrator sample [17 (link)]. The amount of target, normalized to an endogenous reference and relative to a calibrator, was calculated. The fold change is obtained by 2–DDCT. This method assigns a value of 0.7 to the calibrator sample, and all other quantities are expressed as an n-fold difference relative to the calibrator.