TY - JOUR AU - She, Xinwei AU - Rohl, Carol A. AU - Castle, John C. AU - Kulkarni, Amit V. AU - Johnson, Jason M. AU - Chen, Ronghua PY - 2009 DA - 2009/06/17 TI - Definition, conservation and epigenetics of housekeeping and tissue-enriched genes JO - BMC Genomics SP - 269 VL - 10 IS - 1 AB - Housekeeping genes (HKG) are constitutively expressed in all tissues while tissue-enriched genes (TEG) are expressed at a much higher level in a single tissue type than in others. HKGs serve as valuable experimental controls in gene and protein expression experiments, while TEGs tend to represent distinct physiological processes and are frequently candidates for biomarkers or drug targets. The genomic features of these two groups of genes expressed in opposing patterns may shed light on the mechanisms by which cells maintain basic and tissue-specific functions. SN - 1471-2164 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-10-269 DO - 10.1186/1471-2164-10-269 ID - She2009 ER -