highly significantp < 0.001
We validated the reliability of RNA-seq data by qRT-PCR detection of 18 randomly selected up- and downregulated DEGs using gene-specific primers ( Supplementary Table S1 ), showing a highly significant correlation (R 2 = 0.9776, p < 0.001) between the results of RNA-seq and qRT-PCR ( Figure 5 B,C).