Oligonucleotide probes ( Table 2) were designed using the CloneManager5 program with following submission of the sequences a NCBI BLAST search [25] to exclude alignments with other genes. HPLC-purified unlabelled and biotin-labeled oligonucleotide capture probes were purchased from Metabion GmbH (Martinsried, Germany). Dig-tail labeling of the detection probes was performed according to manufacturer's instructions using the Roche Dig-tailing kit (2 nd generation, Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Mannheim, Germany).