Statistical testing
The results of blood biochemical and qRT-PCR were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). The data were presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD). Differences between two groups were analyzed by unpaired Student’s t-test (normally distributed continuous variables) or Mann–Whitney U test (nonnormally distributed continuous variables). Probabilities less than 5% (p < 0.05) were considered to be statistically significant.