ArticlePLoS computational biology2022
What are housekeeping genes?
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 88 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed, 149 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Gene Expression and Alternative Splicing Regulate Phenotypic Plasticity of a Social Wasp.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Investigation Into the Collection and Isolation Workflows of Extracellular Vesicles From Tears.Journal of extracellular biology · 2026Article
- HuNT: A Reference Transcriptome Atlas for Human Normal Tissues.Phenomics (Cham, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Inter-individual gene expression variability implies stable regulation of brain-biased genes across organs in three ray-finned fishes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- An information content principle explains regulatory patterns of gene expression across human tissues.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Peptonizer2000: Bringing Confidence to Metaproteomics.Journal of proteome research · 2026Article
- Pan-Transcriptome Analyses of Multiple Tissues and Growth Stages Create Expression Atlases for the SilkwormAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Dietary arginine modulates egg production and mTOR signalling pathway gene expression in adult Japanese quail (Veterinary and animal science · 2026Article
- Incorporating Scale Uncertainty into Differential Expression Analyses Using ALDEx2.Current protocols · 2026Article
- Comparative Pan- and Phylo-Genomic Analysis of Ideonella and Thermobifida Strains: Dissemination of Biodegradation Potential and Genomic Divergence.Biochemical genetics · 2026Article
- Multicondition expression profiling reveals limitations of canonical housekeeping genes.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Reference Gene Stability inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Human clearance systems have a layered architecture across tissues and cell types that supports varied proteome compositions.Autophagy · 2026Article
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- Impacts of gene duplication in the evolution of symbiotic root nodule symbiosis in legumes.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- A study of gene expression in the living human brain.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The concept of "housekeeping gene" has been used for four decades but remains loosely defined. Housekeeping genes are commonly described as "essential for cellular existence regardless of their specific function in the tissue or organism", and "stably expressed irrespective of tissue type, developmental stage, cell cycle state, or external signal". However, experimental support for the tenet that gene essentiality is linked to stable expression across cell types, conditions, and organisms has been limited. Here we use genome-scale functional genomic screens together with bulk and single-cell sequencing technologies to test this link and optimize a quantitative and experimentally validated definition of housekeeping gene. Using the optimized definition, we identify, characterize, and provide as resources, housekeeping gene lists extracted from several human datasets, and 10 other animal species that include primates, chicken, and C. elegans. We find that stably expressed genes are not necessarily essential, and that the individual genes that are essential and stably expressed can considerably differ across organisms; yet the pathways enriched among these genes are conserved. Further, the level of conservation of housekeeping genes across the analyzed organisms captures their taxonomic groups, showing evolutionary relevance for our definition. Therefore, we present a quantitative and experimentally supported definition of housekeeping genes that can contribute to better understanding of their unique biological and evolutionary characteristics.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.