Participants were asked to call the health educator to guide them through the blood sampling while using a spring-loaded lancet to draw blood from their fingertips and fill in one to three circles (1.2 cm diameter) on a special filter paper card.
Briefly, the type I collagen gel solution mixture was put on a filter of Millicell-CM inserts and placed in 6-well plates.
For the stimulation the pheromone components were diluted in redistilled n-hexane and applied on a filter paper (1 × 1 cm, Munktell Filter AB, Falun, Sweden) inside a Pasteur pipette.
75.000 cells per cm were seeded on a transwell filter in MTEC plus medium.
To determine germination percentage, 60 seeds were placed in transparent plastic germination boxes (12×8×5 cm, L×W×H) on moist filter paper (grade: 3 W, Munktell Filter AB, Grycksbo, Sweden).
After the ASD was trapped on a quartz filter, the quartz filter (20 × 25 cm, 2500QAT-UP, Tokyo Dylec Corp ,Japan) was cut into 1/8 piece.
Following the forced swim test, mice were food deprived for 24 h before being placed in an opaque white acrylic box (30×30×30 cm) that contained a food pellet chip (Feeder and Grower diet, Specialty Feeds, WA) placed on a 5×5 cm piece of filter paper.
Prior to test, a food pellet was placed on a round filter paper (10 cm) and positioned in the center of the apparatus (40×40×40 cm).
The acid insoluble fraction (crystalline cellulose) was recovered on a glass filter (GF/C, 2.5 cm diameter, Whatman) and washed thrice with distilled water.
Stimulus water used in the experiment was filtered through a 25 cm presediment filter followed by a 25 cm activated carbon filter (Pozzani Pure Water, Louth, UK) and stored at room temperature 1 h prior to the experiment.
