EVALUATION OF CANDIDATE REFERENCE GENES FOR QPCR DURING ONTOGENESIS AND OF IMMUNE-RELEVANT TISSUES OF EUROPEAN SEABASS (DICENTRARCHUS LABRAX).

The expression level of mRNA can vary significantly in different experimental conditions, such as stress, infection, developmental stage or tissue. Suitable reference genes are expected to exhibit constant expression levels. However no single gene is constitutively expressed in all cell types and under all experimental conditions. It has become clear that expression stability of the intended reference gene has to be examined before each experiment. For expression studies using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) at least two reference genes have to be applied. According to two algorithms the best two reference genes for an appropriate normalization approach during D. labrax development are Ef-1 alpha and L13a whereas in the tissue panel Fau and L13a are recommended for qPCR normalization.