Abstract

Toxicodendron succedaneum(L.) Kuntze (T. succedaneum) is an economic tree species that produces urushiol and urushi wax, and it is of great value in industry and medicine. However, the stability of reference genes (RGs) has not been systematically reported inT. succedaneumto date. In this study, the expression of 10 candidate RGs was analyzed by RT-qPCR in different tissues (roots, stems, leaves), stress treatments (high/low temperature, drought), and hormone stimulation (jasmonic acid, JA). Then, the stability ranking of 10 candidate genes was evaluated by ∆Ct analysis and three software programs: geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper. Finally, RefFinder was used to comprehensively analyze the expression stability of 10 candidate genes. The comprehensive analysis showed thatTsRG05/06,TsRG01/06, andTsRG03/ACTwere stable under high/low-temperature stress, drought stress, and JA treatment, respectively.TsRG03andACThad stable expression in different tissues. While theTsRG03andACTwere recommended as the suitable RGs forT. succedaneumin all samples. Meanwhile,UBQwas the least suitable as a reference gene forT. succedaneum. In addition, the results of geNorm showed that the combination of two stable RGs could make the results of gene expression more accurate. These results provide alternative RGs for the study of gene function, correction, and normalization of target gene expression and directed molecular breeding inT. succedaneum.Keywords:gene expression;reference gene;RT-qPCR;Toxicodendron succedaneum