RPS13, a potential universal reference gene for normalisation of gene expression in multiple human normal and cancer tissue samples

Background Reference genes are considered stable genes and are used for normalizing the gene expression profile across different cell types; as well as, in normal and diseased samples. However, these gene associates with different biological processes, and hence expression vary in different pathological conditions. Therefore, in the present study, eight different reference genes were used and compared to identify common reference gene usable for an array of different cell types and human cancers. Methods and results The expression stability of the eight reference genes across eleven normal and cancerous tissues was confirmed through real time-qPCR. Ribosomal protein S13 (RPS13) was found to be a common and stable reference gene across intra- and inter-comparison between various normal and tumor tissue types. Further, TCGA data analysis across and between normal and tumor tissue types also showed minimum deviation in expression of RPS13 gene out of eight routinely used reference genes. Conclusion RPS13 is the common stable reference gene in normalization for gene expression based analysis in cancer research.