Evaluation of housekeeping genes for quantitative gene expression analysis in the equine kidney

Housekeeping genes (HKGs) are used as internal controls for normalising and calculating the relative expression of target genes in RT-qPCR experiments. There is no unique universal HKG and HKGs vary among organisms and tissues, so this study aimed to determine the most stably expressed HKGs in the equine kidney. The evaluated HKGs included 18S ribosomal RNA (18S), 28S ribosomal RNA (28S), ribosomal protein L32 (RPL32), β-2-microglobulin (B2M), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), succinate dehydrogenase complex (SDHA), zeta polypeptide (YWHAZ), and hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase 1 (HPRT1). The HKGs expression stability data were analysed with two software packages, geNorm and NormFinder. The lowest stability values for geNorm suggests that YWHAZ and HPRT1 would be most optimal (M=0.31 and 0.32, respectively). Further, these two genes had the best pairwise stability value using NormFinder (geNorm V=0.085). Therefore, these two genes were considered the most useful for RT-qPCR studies in equine kidney.