PURPOSE To identify non-housekeeping genes definitively expressed in the human trabecular meshwork (TM). METHODS Microarray gene expression data on TM cultured cells from four studies were compared. Genes that were queried in at least three studies and assessed to be expressed in at least three studies were considered definitively expressed genes of the human TM. Housekeeping genes were remov...

BACKGROUND Categorizing protein-encoding transcriptomes of normal tissues into housekeeping genes and tissue-selective genes is a fundamental step toward studies of genetic functions and genetic associations to tissue-specific diseases. Previous studies have been mainly based on a few data sets with limited samples in each tissue, which restrained the representativeness of their identified gene...

To identify stable housekeeping genes as a reference for expression analysis under heat and salt stress conditions in pigeonpea, the relative expression variation for 10 commonly used housekeeping genes (EF1α, UBQ10, GAPDH, 18Sr RNA, 25Sr RNA, TUB6, ACT1, IF4α, UBC, and HSP90) was studied in root, stem, and leaves tissues of Asha (ICPL 87119), a leading pigeonpea variety. Three statistical algo...

HOUSEKEEPING GENES are constitutively expressed to maintain cellular function. As such, they are presumed to produce the minimally essential transcripts necessary for normal cellular physiology. With the advent of microarray technology, it has recently become possible to identify at least the “starter set” of housekeeping genes, as exemplified by the work of Velculescu et al. (2), as well as by...

Molecular typing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains is an important tool for epidemiological studies of gonococcal infection and transmission. The recently developed multilocus sequence typing (MLST) method is based on the genetic variation among housekeeping genes. As a preliminary investigation for the development of such a method, we characterized the genetic diversity at 18 gonococcal houseke...

Human tissue-specific genes were reported to be longer than housekeeping genes (both in coding and intronic parts). The competing neutralist and adaptationist models were proposed to explain this observation. Here I show that in human genome the longest are genes with the intermediate expression pattern. From the standpoint of information theory, the regulation of such genes should be most comp...

We compared the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in humans in 182 housekeeping and 148 tissue-specific genes. SNPs were divided into rare and common polymorphisms based on their frequencies. We found that housekeeping genes tend to be less polymorphic than tissue-specific genes for both rare and common SNPs. Using mouse as a second species for computing sequence divergences, we found no e...

Biological maintenance of cells under variable conditions should affect gene expression of only certain genes while leaving the rest unchanged. The latter, termed "housekeeping genes," by definition must reflect no change in their expression levels during cell development, treatment, or disease state anomalies. However, deviations from this rule have been observed. Using DNA microarray technolo...

Analyses of different plant stressors are often based on gene expression studies. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) is the most sensitive method for the detection of low abundance transcripts. However, a critical point to note is the selection of housekeeping genes as an internal control. Many so-called 'housekeeping genes' are often affected by different stress factors and may not be sui...

Injury to the peripheral nerve induces dramatic changes in terms of cellular composition that are reflected on RNA quality and quantity, making messenger RNA expression analysis very complex. Several commonly used housekeeping genes are regulated following peripheral nerve injury and are thus not suitable for quantitative real-time PCR normalization; moreover, the presence of pseudogenes in som...