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Tea plant (Camellia sinensis) leaf is an important non-alcoholic beverage resource. The application of quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) has a profound significance for the gene expression studies of tea plant, especially when applied to tea leaf development and metabolism. In this study, nine candidate reference genes (i.e., CsACT7, CsEF-1α, CseIF-4α, CsGAPDH, CsPP2A, CsSAND, CsTBP, CsTIP41, and CsTUB) of C. sinensis were cloned. The quantitative expression data of these genes were investigated in five tea leaf developmental stages (i.e., 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and older leaves) and normal growth tea leaves subjected to five hormonal stimuli (i.e., ABA, GA, IAA, MeJA, and SA), and gene expression stability was calculated using three common statistical algorithms, namely, geNorm, NormFinder, and Bestkeeper. Results indicated that CsTBP and CsTIP41 were the most stable genes in tea leaf development and CsTBP was the best gene under hormonal stimuli; by contrast, CsGAPDH and CsTUB genes showed the least stability. The gene expression profile of CsNAM gene was analyzed to confirm the validity of the reference genes in this study. Our data provide basis for the selection of reference genes for future biological research in the leaf development and hormonal stimuli of C. sinensis.

Throughout its development, common wheat, Triticum aestivum responds to different kinds of adverse abiotic and biotic stress by expressing specific genes that allow it to adapt to these stresses. In this process, genes in the AP2/ERF family encode transcriptional regulators involved in diverse developmental and physiological processes play critical roles. Here, we established an extensive picture of the AP2/ERF family genes in wheat. From 960, 174 ESTs of T. aestivum, 117 putative AP2/ERF family genes were identified by in silico analysis based on the presence of the conserved AP2/ERF domain amino acid sequence of Arabidopsis thaliana. Based on the model species A. thaliana, the AP2/ERF TFs from T. aestivum were classified into five subfamilies with the following number of members: DREB (57), ERF (47), AP2 (9), RAV (3) and Soloist (1). Using the available EST information as a source of expression data, the putative AP2/ERF family genes from T. aestivum were detected in nine kinds of tissues. Transcripts of the genes were shown to be most abundant in leaves, followed by roots and seeds, and the least abundant in stem. Most of the T. aestivum AP2/ERF family genes showed some tissue specificity.