Dear All, I'm very confused with the use of housekeeping gene. Can anyone give me some detail? Thank a lots Zhao

Housekeeping gene: An antiquated term used to describe a category of genes thought to be expressed in every cell type at a constant level. The name comes from the presumed function of such genes - functions of basic necessity for every cell type. Their seemingly constant level of expression (in Northern blot assays) led to the term being synonymous with the term "control gene" (a gene used as a standard index against which other gene's expression levels were evaluated). Of course they don't really exist. And standardizing against one gene's expression level, or against a subset of genes for that matter, distorts results in a way that is more confusing than standardizing against the entire set of genes. For more see: http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/2/292?maxtoshow=&HITS=10 &hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=lee%2C+p&searchid=1076303038444_714&sto red_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&journalcode=genome Hope this is helps. Peter --- zhao luo <zhaoluo@hotmail.com> wrote: > Dear All, > > I'm very confused with the use of housekeeping gene. > Can anyone give me some > detail? > > Thank a lots > > Zhao > > _______________________________________________ > Bioconductor mailing list > Bioconductor@stat.math.ethz.ch > https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioconductor