All statistical analyses were performed using the Statistica V.6 software and graphs were prepared using Microsoft Excel. Student’s t test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and two-way ANOVA followed by different post-hoc tests were used to compare different groups. Parametric Student’s or ANOVA tests were applied to normally distributed data sets with equal variance. Since this study used a new animal model, we did not have any preliminary data set to decide the sample size based on a statistical method. Hence, we have estimated the sample size based on literature and our previous experience with similar models. No animals were excluded from the study for the data analysis. For all graphs data represent mean ± SEM.