By real-time quantitative PCR (RTQ-PCR), two different standardisation methods were used to quantify expression of three target genes (RNAII and RNAIII transcripts of agr locus and ica transcript of icaADBC locus): (i) a relative quantification, using a transcript of three housekeeping genes (gyrase A, gyrA; guanylate kinase, gmk and 16S rRNA, 16S) as internal standard, and (ii) an absolute qua...