Total RNA from the heart tissues was purified using an RNA purification kit (cat. no. 12183025; Invitrogen; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.). The first-strand cDNA was synthesized using oligo(dT)12-18 primers (cat. no. 18418012; Invitrogen; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.), dNTP Mix (cat. no. 18427-013; Invitrogen), Ribonuclease Inhibitor (cat. no. 10777-019; Invitrogen), DTT (cat. no. Y00147; Invitrogen), and M-MLV Reverse Transcriptase (cat. no. 28025-013; Invitrogen). The reaction process was under 37°C for 50 min and then was terminated at 70°C for 15 min. qPCR was performed using SYBR green PCR master mix (cat. no. 4367659; Applied Biosystems; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.) using the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio 5 platform and the amplification conditions (95°C for 5 min followed by 45 cycles of 95°C for 15 s, 55°C for 15 s and 72°C for 20 s) were set as previously described (16 (link)). Gene specific primers (Table I) were provided by Sangon Biotech Co., Ltd. The relative RNA expression levels were calculated using 2−ΔΔCq (21 (link)) and normalized against the housekeeping gene, 18S rRNA.