Jatropha curcas is an oilseed crop with biorefinery applications. Whilst cake generated following oil extraction offers potential as a protein source for animal feed, inactivation of toxic phorbol esters present in the material is necessary. Pleurotus pulmonarius is a detoxifying agent for jatropha cake with additional potential as animal feed, edible mushroom and for enzyme production. For the characterization of fungal genes involved in phorbol ester degradation, together with other industrial applications, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) is a tool that enables accurate quantification of gene expression. For this, reliable analysis requires reference genes for normalization of mRNA levels validated under conditions employed for target genes. The stability of potential reference genes β-TUB, ACTIN, GAPDH, PHOS, EF1α, TRPHO, LAC, MNP3, MYP and VP were evaluated following growth of P. pulmonarius on toxic, non-toxic jatropha cake and a combined treatment, respectively. NormFinder and geNorm algorithms for expression stability analysis identified PHOS, EF1α and MNP3 as appropriate for normalizing gene expression. Reference gene combinations contrasting in ranking were compared following normalization of relative expression of the CHU_2040 gene, encoding an esterase enzyme potentially involved in phorbol ester degradation. The reference genes for P. pulmonarius will facilitate the elucidation of mechanisms involved in detoxification of phorbol esters as well as analysis of target genes for application in biorefinery models.
© 2023. The Author(s).