Authors: Enrica Boda Alessandro Pini Eriola Hoxha Roberta Parolisi Filippo Tempia
Publish Date: 2008/07/08
Volume: 37, Issue: 3, Pages: 238-253
Abstract
Since a growing number of studies based on the realtime reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction RTPCR continue to be published in order to highlight genes specifically involved in brain development maturation and function the identification of reference genes suitable for this kind of experiments is now an urgent need in the neuroscience field The aim of this work was to verify the suitability of some very common housekeeping genes such as Gapdh 18s and B2m and of some relatively new control genes such as Pgk1 Tfrc and Gusb during mouse brain maturation We tested the candidate reference genes in mouse whole brain cerebellum brain stem hippocampus medial septum frontal neocortex and olfactory bulb Moreover we reported the first complete study of Pgk1 expression throughout the development and the aging of mouse brain Although no tested gene showed to be the optimal reference for all mouse brain regions in general the new housekeeping genes were highly stable in most of the analyzed regions Above all with few exceptions Pgk1 showed to be a reliable control for the analyzed mouse brain regions during development maturation and agingThe experiments were supported by grants to FT from MIUR PRIN2005 Regione Piemonte Ricerca Scientifica Applicata 2004 projects A183 and A74 and Ricerca Sanitaria Finalizzata 2006 and 2007 Compagnia di San Paolo Fondazione CRT Progetto Alfieri EB is recipient of a CRT fellowship Progetto Lagrange The authors gratefully thank Annarita De Luca for the helpful suggestions and Matteo Novello for the technical support
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