Volume 68, Issue 14 p. 1555-1560
Original Article

Both β-actin and GAPDH are useful reference genes for normalization of quantitative RT-PCR in human FFPE tissue samples of prostate cancer

Ryutaro Mori

Ryutaro Mori

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California

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Qingcai Wang

Qingcai Wang

Department of Medical Oncology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California

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Kathleen D. Danenberg

Kathleen D. Danenberg

Response Genetics Inc., Los Angeles, California

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Jacek K. Pinski

Jacek K. Pinski

Department of Medical Oncology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California

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Peter V. Danenberg

Corresponding Author

Peter V. Danenberg

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California

Division of Medical Oncology, University of Southern California/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, NOR 5318, 1441 Eastlake Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90033.Search for more papers by this author
First published: 23 July 2008
Citations: 85

Abstract

BACKGROUND

β-Actin and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) have been frequently considered as constitutive house keeping genes for RT-PCR and used to normalize changes in specific gene expressions. However, these expressions have been shown to be affected by the sample type and experimental conditions. We investigated which housekeeping gene is useful to study gene expression of paraffin embedded human tissue samples of prostate cancer.

METHODS

Fifteen pairs of cancer and corresponding normal tissue were obtained from patients with prostate cancer. We evaluated gene expression of β-actin, GAPDH, androgen receptor (AR), and heat-shock 70-kd protein 5 (HSPA5) using laser captured microdissection and quantitative RT-PCR. AR and HSPA5 gene expression were normalized to each of these reference genes using the 2−ΔΔCt method of relative quantification. The quantity 2Ct(normal)−Ct(cancer) divided by ratio of cDNA(cancer)/cDNA (normal) was used for comparing differences between cancer and normal tissue in GAPDH and β-actin expression.

RESULTS

Ct value of β-actin was significantly correlated with that of GAPDH (r = 0.443, P = 0.014). AR and HSPA5 gene expression levels using β-actin for normalization were significantly correlated with these gene expression levels using GAPDH (AR; r = 0.689, P = 0.004, HSPA5; r = 0.879, P < 0.001). Both reference genes were expressed more highly in cancer tissue than in normal tissue, with that of GAPDH being significantly different between cancer tissue and normal tissue (P = 0.029).

CONCLUSIONS

The good correlation between gene expression values obtained when using β-actin and GAPDH as reference genes suggests that either gene is a valid denominator for gene expression studies in prostate cancer.Prostate 68: 1555–1560, 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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