Selection and validation of reference genes for studying stress-related agarwood formation of Aquilaria sinensis

Agarwood is a high-valued woody material for medicine, perfume, and incense production in Asia, Middle East, and Europe. The wild resources of agarwood-producing tree species, e.g., Aquilaria sinensis have been greatly threatened. The formation of agarwood is considered to be associated with the plant stress and defensive responses, thus it would be urgent and significant to investigate the molecular mechanism of these species responding to a variety of stresses. This is the first report regarding the reference gene selection of Aquilaria species for studying the molecular mechanism of stress-related agarwood production. Candidate reference genes were selected according to previous reports and the sequences were obtained from the 454 EST library of A. sinensis. To obtain the robust genes, we applied three independent programs depending on distinct assumptions and combined these results by a rank aggregation algorithm. The result supports tubulin, ribosomal protein, and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase to be the most stable reference genes for quantification of target gene expression in the overall samples examined. Validation of these genes through normalizing the expression of a terpene synthase demonstrated that these three genes are reliable. The selective usage of three algorithms based on their characteristics was underlined. However, more robust genes could be identified if the results of all algorithms were combined by a proper method such as the rank aggregation algorithm. Key message Reference genes which are critical in gene expression studies are recommended for future molecular studies of stress response and agarwood production in the endangered Aquilaria and other tree species.