2.12. Autophagy Gene Expression
BLOOD
Fasting whole blood was collected in Tempus™ Blood RNA Tubes (Cat#: 4342792, Applied Biosystems™, Thermo Fisher Scientific, VIC, Australia) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Tubes were then stored at −20 °C. mRNA was later isolated from frozen samples using a Tempus™ Spin RNA Isolation Kit (Cat#: 4380204, Applied Biosystems™, Thermo Fisher Scientific Australia). cDNA reverse transcription from extracted mRNA and gene expression analysis (quantitative real-time polymerase-chain reaction) were conducted as described elsewhere [