Quantifying Dopamine Receptor Expression

Total RNA was isolated from the cells using RNAeasy Mini kit (Qiagen), according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Total RNA concentration was measured using the Nanodrop spectrophotometer and then used for reverse transcription using SuperScript III Reverse Transcriptase (Invitrogen, Waltham, MA). Most primers were purchased from Qiagen (Valencia, CA). PCRs were performed using RT2 SYBR Green ROX FAST Mastermix (Qiagen), in a 7900HT Fast Real-Time PCR System with Fast 96-Well Block Module (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA), with a SDS Plate utility v2.2 software (Applied Biosystems). The results were normalized to the expression of GAPDH. The primers for the DA receptors were previously described [18 (link)]. Primers for CCR5 were purchased from Qiagen.