primed with an oligo-dT17 primer and PCR was performed using
Blend Taqs-Plus-DNA polymerase (TOYOBO, Japan) according to
the manufacturer’s instructions. The sequences of the primers used
in this study are shown in Table 1. The PCR conditions consisted of
an initial denaturation step of 94 1C for 2 min, followed by 30–45
cycles of 94 1C for 30 s, 60 1C for 30 s and a final elongation step of
72 1C for 30 s.