Evaluation of internal control genes for gene expression studies in skeletal muscle of riverine buffaloes

Abstract

Real-time PCR analysis is required to be normalized with internal control genes (ICG) for validating the wholegenome microarray data or a smaller set of genes. In riverine buffaloes very few Internal Control Genes (ICG) have been reported till date for transcriptional studies in meat quality. Present study utilized muscle tissues from fattening and non- fattening buffaloes. The treated animals (fattening) were fed with formulated diet and control animals (nonfattening) were fed with normal diet. A total of 10 previously known house keeping genes were evaluated to identify stably expressed ICGs in buffalo muscle tissue. Three softwares based on different algorithms: geNorm, Normfinder and BestKeeper were used to measure transcript stability. Results suggested that geometric average of UXT, RS18 and B2M would provide better normalization of gene expression data in buffalo muscle tissue.