hi everyone,

i just want to know what they exactly mean by housekeeping genes. if a gene is labelled a "housekeeping gene" is it essential for the survival of the cell? thanks!

Housekeeping genes are often genes involved in the maintenance of a cell, hence their name. In research they are often used as a control or used to be able to compare two different assays.
Normally you say (hope ) that they are expressed eaqually in all cells and tissues (they are not entirely, so you use more than one to overcome this, and from different pathways).
I have used it in Nothern and qRT-PCR, and you normalise against the housekeeping genes to get a (semi) quantitative measure.
Regards Caro