EF1α is a useful internal reference for studies of gene expression regulation in amphioxus Branchiostoma japonicum

Amphioxus is a well-known model organism widely used for interspecies comparative genome study, developmental homology analysis and comparative immunological investigation. However, no study has been performed so far to evaluate the internal reference for quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) studies of gene expression in this important species. In this study, two software applications (geNorm and NormFinder) were used to evaluate the expression stability of 4 housekeeping genes (ACTB, GAPDH, 18S rRNA and EF1α) in 8 different normal tissues (whole body, gut, gut-free body, hepatic caecum, gill, hind-gut, notochord and muscle) and 2 tissues (gut and gut-free body) challenged with LPS and LTA in amphioxus Branchiostoma japonicum. Our results showed that in the normal tissues, the expression of 18S rRNA was most abundant, whereas the expression levels of the other three genes were close to each other, with the expression of ACTB being most unstable. Following challenge with LPS and LTA, all the four genes exhibited varied degrees of expression changes in the different tissues and the expression stabilities of the genes were also affected by the different experimental conditions. Yet, the overall ranking results produced by the two algorithms consistently indicated that the expression of EF1α showed the most least variation in the different tissues, suggesting that EF1α is a suitable internal control for qRT-PCR studies in amphioxus B. japonicum.

► Expression of ACTB in normal tissues was less stable than that of other three HKGs.
► Expression of EF1α in LPS-exposed animals was most stable.
► Expression of EF1α in LTA-exposed animals was least fluctuated.
► EF1α is a suitable internal control for qRT-PCR studies.