Abstract
Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is a dioecious crop widely known for its production of phytocannabinoids, flavonoids, and terpenes. In the past two years since its legalization, there has been significant interest in researching this important crop for pharmaceutical applications. Although many scientific reports have demonstrated gene expression analysis of hemp through OMICs approaches, accurate validation of omics data cannot be performed because of lack of reliable reference genes for normalization of qRT-PCR data. The differential gene expression patterns of 13 candidate reference genes under osmotic, heavy metal, hormonal, and UV stress were evaluated through four software packages: geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, and RefFinder. The EF-1a ranked as the most stable reference gene across all stresses, TUB was the most stable under osmotic stress, and TATA was the most stable under both heavy metal and hormonal stress. The expression profiles of two cannabinoid pathway genes, AAE1 and THCAS, using the two most stable and single least stable reference genes confirmed that two most stables genes were apt for normalization of gene expression data. This work will contribute to the future studies on the expression analysis of hemp genes regulating the synthesis, transport and accumulation of secondary metabolites.
In silicio expression analysis of PKS genes isolated from Cannabis sativa L.