Table 4.

Ranking of six candidate reference genes for Melipona quadrifasciata based on their expression stability according to analyses by geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, and delta-Ct during development, between sexes, in tissues, and after bacterial injection and pesticide exposure.

Condition	Reference Gene	geNorm		NormFinder		BestKeeper		delta-Ct
		Stability	Rank	Stability	Rank	Stability	Rank	Stability	Stability
Development	ef1-α	1.043	6	1.74	6	0.861	5	1.80	6
	gapdh	0.665	5	1.21	5	1.321	6	1.34	5
	rpl32	0.257	1	0.13	1	0.774	3	0.75	2
	rps5	0.257	1	0.13	2	0.838	4	0.77	3
	rps18	0.263	3	0.13	3	0.765	2	0.73	1
	tbp-af	0.382	4	0.35	4	0.677	1	0.87	4
Sex	ef1-α	0.988	6	1.66	6	1.041	6	1.70	6
	gapdh	0.629	5	0.97	5	0.759	5	1.14	5
	rpl32	0.145	1	0.07	2	0.696	3	0.70	1
	rps5	0.200	3	0.08	3	0.655	1	0.74	3
	rps18	0.145	1	0.07	1	0.683	2	0.70	2
	tbp-af	0.444	4	0.70	4	0.701	4	0.94	4
Tissues, organs and body parts	ef1-α	0.994	5	1.05	4	4.250	5	1.29	4
	gapdh	1.164	6	1.39	6	4.580	6	1.51	6
	rpl32	0.426	1	0.55	2	3.253	3	0.99	3
	rps5	0.698	4	1.21	5	2.744	1	1.32	5
	rps18	0.426	1	0.56	3	3.239	2	0.98	2
	tbp-af	0.583	3	0.33	1	3.632	4	0.89	1
Bacterial injection	ef1-α	0.292	6	0.46	6	0.650	6	0.48	6
	gapdh	0.197	5	0.19	5	0.638	5	0.31	5
	rpl32	0.094	3	0.18	4	0.465	2	0.26	4
	rps5	0.131	4	0.13	3	0.453	1	0.25	3
	rps18	0.042	1	0.13	2	0.485	3	0.22	1
	tbp-af	0.042	1	0.12	1	0.497	4	0.23	2
Pesticide exposure	ef1-α	0.306	5	0.28	3	0.516	5	0.43	5
	gapdh	0.416	6	0.62	6	0.686	6	0.64	6
	rpl32	0.117	1	0.22	2	0.214	2	0.34	2
	rps5	0.140	3	0.32	5	0.237	3	0.39	4
	rps18	0.117	1	0.30	4	0.186	1	0.37	3
	tbp-af	0.203	4	0.11	1	0.338	4	0.32	1