After the 2-DE, the gels were stained with SYPRO Ruby Protein Stain (Bio-Rad)
according to the manufacturer’s protocol. The stained gels were scanned with a Molecular
Imager PharosFX Plus System (Bio-Rad) and analysed by PDQuest 8.0 software
(Bio-Rad). Each expression level was calculated as the percentage volume (% vol)
and exported for statistical analysis. The relative intensities of spots were used for
comparison between the two groups, and only those spots with significant differences
(greater than 1.5-fold increase or decrease; p < 0.05) were selected for protein
identification.