{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,1]],"date-time":"2026-09-01T03:50:05Z","timestamp":1788234605568,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,3]],"date-time":"2022-10-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1664755200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000275","name":"Leverhulme Trust","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["LT-2019-006"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["LT-2019-006"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000275","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Quantitative PCR (qPCR) is a common molecular tool to analyse the expression of transcripts in non-traditional animal models. Most animals experience tissue-specific seasonal changes in cell structure, growth, and cellular function. As a consequence, the choice of reference or \u2018house-keeping\u2019 genes is essential to standardize expression levels of target transcripts of interest for qPCR analyses. This study aimed to determine the abundance, efficiency and stability of several reference genes commonly used for normalisation of qPCR analyses in a model of seasonal biology: the Siberian hamster (<jats:italic>Phodopus sungorus<\/jats:italic>). Liver, brown-adipose tissue (BAT), white adipose tissue (WAT), testes, spleen, kidney, the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus, and the pituitary gland from either long or short photoperiod Siberian hamsters were dissected to test tissue-specific and photoperiod effects on reference transcripts. qPCR was conducted for common reference genes including 18s ribosomal RNA (<jats:italic>18s<\/jats:italic>), glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (<jats:italic>Gapdh<\/jats:italic>), hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (<jats:italic>Hprt<\/jats:italic>), and actin-\u03b2 (<jats:italic>Act<\/jats:italic>). Cycling time (Ct), efficiency (E) and replicate variation of Ct and E measured by percent coefficient of variance (CV%) was determined using PCR miner. Measures of stability were assessed using a combined approach of NormFinder and BestKeeper.<jats:italic>18s<\/jats:italic>and<jats:italic>Act<\/jats:italic>did not vary in Ct across photoperiod conditions. Splenic, WAT and BAT<jats:italic>Gapdh<\/jats:italic>Ct was higher in long compared to short photoperiod. Splenic<jats:italic>Hprt<\/jats:italic>Ct was higher in long photoperiods. There was no significant effect of photoperiod, tissue or interaction on measures of efficiency, Ct CV%, or efficiency CV%. NormFinder and BestKeeper confirmed that<jats:italic>18s<\/jats:italic>,<jats:italic>Gapdh<\/jats:italic>and<jats:italic>Hprt<\/jats:italic>were highly stable, while<jats:italic>Act<\/jats:italic>showed low stability. These findings suggest that<jats:italic>18s<\/jats:italic>and<jats:italic>Hprt<\/jats:italic>show the most reliable stability, efficiency, and abundance across the tissues. Overall, the study provides a comprehensive and standardised approach to assess multiple reference genes in the Siberian hamster and help to inform molecular assays used in studies of photoperiodism.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0275263","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,3]],"date-time":"2022-10-03T17:38:48Z","timestamp":1664818728000},"page":"e0275263","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":14,"title":["Abundance, efficiency, and stability of reference transcript expression in a seasonal rodent: The Siberian hamster"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6216-6044","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Calum","family":"Stewart","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5551-5608","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Timothy A.","family":"Liddle","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2644-9685","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Tyler J.","family":"Stevenson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0275263.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1045","DOI":"10.1089\/cmb.2005.12.1047","article-title":"Comprehensive algorithm for quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction","volume":"12","author":"S. 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