2.9 Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR)
Total RNA was isolated using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen) per the manufacturer’s protocol. RNA was reverse transcribed into cDNA using the SweScript RT I First Strand cDNA Synthesis Kit (With gDNA Remover) (Servicebio, Wuhan, China). qPCR was performed on a QuantStudioTM5 Real-Time PCR instrument (Applied Biosystems, USA) using the SYBR Green PCR Master Mix (Toyobo, Japan) with cDNA template and primers. The primers are displayed in Table 1 .
Table 1 . Primer sequences for qRT-PCR