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Updated: Jun 16, 2026

Single-cell Gene Expression Profiling Using FACS and qPCR with Internal Standards
Published on: February 25, 2017
Housekeeping genes; expression levels may change with density of cultured cells
Samantha Greer1, Rice Honeywell, Mulu Geletu
1Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.
Abstract:
Western blotting is a powerful technique to characterize a multitude of cellular proteins. As an internal control, the blots are commonly probed for "housekeeping" gene products. In this communication, we show that cell confluence significantly affects the levels of two such widely used proteins, alpha-tubulin and Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase. On the other hand the levels of heat-shock protein-90 and beta-actin remained unchanged at a wide range of cell densities, making these proteins into more reliable loading controls.
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