Equal amounts of total RNA (5 lg) were separated on a denaturizing 1% (w/v) agarose gel. After several washes with RNase-free water, the gel was blotted on Hybond-N membranes (Amersham), and blots were hybridized with 32 P-labeled DNA fragments homolog to the mRNA in question, in the same manner as was described in an earlier study [34] . After post-hybridization washes, the blots were scanned using a Storm phosphor-imager (Molecular Dynamics, Sunnyvale, California, USA).