About the Authors

Florian R. L. Meyer

Affiliations Genomics Core Facility, VetCore, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria, Institute of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria

Heinrich Grausgruber

Affiliation Department of Crop Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Tulln, Austria

Claudia Binter

Affiliation Institute of Animal Nutrition and Functional Plant Compounds, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria

Georg E. Mair

Affiliation Genomics Core Facility, VetCore, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria

Christian Guelly

Affiliation Center for Medical Research, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

Claus Vogl

Affiliation Institute of Animal Breeding and Genetics, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria

Ralf Steinborn

Ralf.Steinborn@vetmeduni.ac.at

Affiliation Genomics Core Facility, VetCore, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Study initiation: RS. Introduced terminology of reference gene classes: CG RS. Contributed 35 percent [PLoS Biol 5: e18.]: FM. Contributed 35 percent [PLoS Biol 5: e18.]: RS. Contributed 15 percent [PLoS Biol 5: e18.]: HG. Contributed 15 percent [PLoS Biol 5: e18.]: CB GM CG CV. Conceived and designed the experiments: FM RS. Performed the experiments: FM HG CB GM CG CV RS. Analyzed the data: FM HG CV RS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HG CV. Wrote the paper: FM RS.