TY - JOUR
T1 - Validation of reference genes for RT-qPCR relative expression analysis during cyst-to-early adult development of Taenia solium
AU - Maravi, Jose
AU - Castaneda-Cario, David
AU - Gutierrez-Loli, Renzo
AU - Del Aguila, Segundo W.
AU - Villar-Davila, Valeria
AU - Blume La Torre, Juan
AU - Guerra-Giraldez, Cristina
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 Maravi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
PY - 2026/1
Y1 - 2026/1
N2 - The development of the zoonotic parasitic tapeworm Taenia solium from larval to adult involves significant but often clinically overlooked events crucial in cestode biology. The early-adult events can be studied in vitro, providing a valuable model to examine scolex evagination, strobilation, and worm development. With some transcriptomes being reported, single-gene relative expression analysis using reverse transcription of RNA (RT) followed by quantitative PCR (qPCR) is valuable to confirm differential expression and study gene regulation during parasite development. However, accurate comparisons with this approach require the validation of endogenous reference genes (RGs). This study identifies stable RGs for normalizing transcript expression data in Taenia. We examined 12 candidate RGs across three “early tape-worm” phases grown in culture. Transcripts were evaluated with RNA-seq and qPCR. Stability rankings were generated using geNorm and NormFinder (for RNA-seq) and RefFinder (for qPCR). Transcripts for rpl13 and ef1a were ranked as the most stable and were tested by using them to normalize the expression of h2b and wnt11a, involved in proliferation and strobilation processes.
AB - The development of the zoonotic parasitic tapeworm Taenia solium from larval to adult involves significant but often clinically overlooked events crucial in cestode biology. The early-adult events can be studied in vitro, providing a valuable model to examine scolex evagination, strobilation, and worm development. With some transcriptomes being reported, single-gene relative expression analysis using reverse transcription of RNA (RT) followed by quantitative PCR (qPCR) is valuable to confirm differential expression and study gene regulation during parasite development. However, accurate comparisons with this approach require the validation of endogenous reference genes (RGs). This study identifies stable RGs for normalizing transcript expression data in Taenia. We examined 12 candidate RGs across three “early tape-worm” phases grown in culture. Transcripts were evaluated with RNA-seq and qPCR. Stability rankings were generated using geNorm and NormFinder (for RNA-seq) and RefFinder (for qPCR). Transcripts for rpl13 and ef1a were ranked as the most stable and were tested by using them to normalize the expression of h2b and wnt11a, involved in proliferation and strobilation processes.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105030304754
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0013893
DO - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0013893
M3 - Artículo
C2 - 41481770
AN - SCOPUS:105030304754
SN - 1935-2727
VL - 20
JO - PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
JF - PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
IS - 1
M1 - e0013893
ER -