25 μl; 10 μM final concentration), and 5× First-Strand Buffer (1 μl). The reaction mix was incubated at 55°C for 60 min and incubation was stopped by holding at 70°C for 15 min. A no-RT control reaction was run to ensure that the RNA samples were free of DNA contamination. For the quantitative RT-PCR reactions, only DNA-free RNA samples were used. First-strand

cDNAs were diluted 10-fold with Nuclease-Free Water (Promega Corp.) and stored at -80°C until use. The same primers were used for the RT reaction as in our previous publication [1]. Real-time PCR A Rotor-Gene 6000 cycler (Corbett Life Science) was used for the real-time quantitative PCR analysis. selleck compound Each reaction (20 μl final volume) contained the following components: 7 μl of cDNAs, 10 μl of Absolute QPCR SYBR Green Mix (Thermo Fisher Scientific), 1.5 μl of forward and reverse primer (10 μM each; we used the same primer pairs as described earlier [1]). The PCR cycling parameters

were as follows: 95°C for 15 min (pre-incubation), and then 30 cycles of 94°C for 25 sec (denaturation), 60°C for 25 sec (annealing), and 72°C for 6 sec (extension). The specific amplification products (with a single peak at the predicted temperature) were identified by melting-point curve analysis. An additional detection Histone Methyltransferase inhibitor step was included in the cycle program to avoid primer dimer detection for those primer pairs that produce primer dimers. The reliability of the primers was verified in our earlier publication [1]. Porcine 28 S rRNA was used as a loading control throughout the experiment. H2O was included as a no-template control, and Thalidomide cDNA derived from the reverse-transcribed RNAs of non-infected cells was used as a negative mock-infected control. SYBR Green-based real-time PCR was applied in this study because of the low costs and simple protocol [51]. Data Citarinostat analysis The following formula was used for calculation of the relative expression ratio (R): where E is the efficiency

of amplification, Ct is the cycle threshold value, ‘sample’ is the examined PRV gene, and ‘ref’ is the 28 S rRNA. The Comparative Quantitation module of the Rotor-Gene 6000 Software (Version 1.7.87., Corbett Research) was used to calculate the real-time PCR efficiency for each sample. Thresholds were set by the software. The R values of both low and high-titre infections were maximized to the 6 h ECt values of the high-MOI experiment. To measure the net change in R between two consecutive time points, RΔ was calculated via the following formula: RΔ = R(t+1)-Rt. The rate of change was calculated as follows: Ra = R(t+1)/Rt. Pearson’s correlation was used for the analysis of the relationship between low- and high-titre infections using the following formula [52]: The correlation measures the linear relationship between two variables, X and Y.