To evaluate, for each gene, the range of concentrations in which
target RNA and Cq values were linearly correlated and to determine
the reaction efficiency, specific reactions were conducted using
cDNA synthesized from serially diluted (1000–0.1 ng) RNA samples.
Relative expression of the 4 genes was evaluated by using
the Cq method
The relative expression values were automatically generated by
entering Cq values from housekeeping and target genes into special
Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets provided by Bio-Rad.