Identification of suitable house-keeping genes during chikungunya virus infection.

Purpose: Quantitative PCR (qPCR) is a reliable and robust technique for gene expression analysis, but its efficacy is dependent on the normalization of qPCR data with the stably expressed reference gene. Selection of a suitable reference gene is mandatory for accurate gene expression analysis, till data the most appropriate reference gene during chikungunya virus infection has not been elucidated.

Method: In this study the expression of reference genes(GAPDH, GUSB, HPRT, Beta-actin, 18S rRNA) was analysed during chikungunya virus infection by quantitative PCR. The stability of the house-keeping genes was evaluated with three bioinformatics softwares: BestKeeper, NormFinder and GeNorm.

Result: The significant variation in the expression of house-keeping genes (GusB, Beta-actin, HPRT) was observed during chikungunya virus infection; whereas GAPDH and 18S rRNA was most stable. The stability of reference genes analysed by the bioinformatics software further corroborate the results of qPCR.

Conclusion: This is first study that identifies and validates the most suitable reference gene for normalization of qPCR data during chikungunya based gene expression analysis. This could serve as a reference study for the researchers working on different aspects of chikungunya virus infections.