
Although some evidence suggests variation in tissue types and developing embryos (PMID: 23099774) if expression is stable across conditions, beta-actin is still considered by many to be a suitable gene for normalization.īeyond its role as a housekeeping gene, it has been shown that beta-actin associates with endothelial nitric-oxide synthase (eNOS) and can therefore regulate nitric oxide activity in endothelial cells (PMID: 12734108). Beta-actin can be used as a reference gene to normalize mRNA or protein levels in quantitative studies of expression. What are the applications for beta-actin?Īs it is ubiquitously and constitutively expressed, beta-actin is a useful loading control in techniques such as RT-PCR and Western Blots to measure baseline expression and degradation. Beta-actin is located in the cytoplasm of non-muscle cells, particularly where the plasma membrane meets the cytoskeleton (PMID: 1993736) and is found co-distributed with alpha-actin (PMID: 9490838). What is the molecular weight of beta-actin?Īctins are a key part of the cytoskeleton and are involved in cell motility, structure, and signaling, with beta-actin as part of the contractile apparatus. It has been widely used as the internal control in RT-PCR and Western Blotting. Beta-actin (or β-actin) is a cytoskeletal actin isoform, highly conserved and ubiquitously expressed in eukaryotic organisms, making it a commonly used "housekeeping gene" in many laboratory techniques. At least six isoforms of actins are known in mammals and other vertebrates. Actins are highly conserved globular proteins that are involved in various types of cell motility and are ubiquitously expressed in all eukaryotic cells.
