Stability comparison of reference genes of Pinctada fucata by real-time qPCR

We analyze the expression stability of the housekeeping genes in Pinctada fucata, including Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (GAPDH), beta-actin (β-actin) and 18S rRNA (18S), by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in different tissues, at different stages of gonadal development and embryonic development.Besides, we select the suitable reference genes by using softwares of BestKeeper, geNorm and NormFinder algorithms.The results indicate that β-actin is the most stable reference gene for different tissues and different embryonic developmental stages, while 18S is the most stable reference gene for different gonadal developmental stages.