cDNAs synthesized from total RNA (Ultraspec RNA isolation system; Biotecx Laboratories) were analyzed with gene-specific primer sets (Invitrogen) and SYBR Green PCR Master mix (PerkinElmer) in an iCycler (Bio-Rad) (16 (link), 32 ). Relative gene expression levels were calculated after normalization to β-actin using the ΔΔCT method (Bio-Rad).
Real-time quantitative RT-PCR primer sets used are as follows.