Selection of reliable reference genes for qRT-PCR analysis on head and neck squamous cell carcinomas.

Abstract

The choice of reliable reference genes as an internal control is inevitable to obtain accurate results. Here we present an assessment of 7 reference genes (18S rRNA, 28S rRNA, ACTB, GAPDH, TUBA1, YWHAZ, and SDHA) to normalize gene expression data in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas (HNSCCs). We attempted to determine a reliable set of reference genes to use in the normalization of gene expression data in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas (HNSCCs) and normal mucosal tissues. Malignant and non-malignant tissue samples were collected from 12 patients with primary untreated HNSCC. geNorm and NormFinder software packages were used for data evaluations. Results obtained by geNorm indicated that average expression stability values (M) of all candidates genes were smaller than 1.5 (accepted M value for geNorm), showing that all the evaluated genes can be employed as HKGs, although GAPDH and ACTB were reported to be the most stable. Similarly, NormFinder results were in agreement with geNorm's results. GAPDH and ACTB are considered to be most suitable reference genes to evaluate novel gene expression in the tissues several of HNSCCs.