diff --git a/R/DEqual.R b/R/DEqual.R
index 81c7db6..5736cb8 100644
--- a/R/DEqual.R
+++ b/R/DEqual.R
@@ -62,11 +62,6 @@ DEqual <- function(DE) {
       stop("'DE' and degradation t-statistics rownames mismatch error.")
     }
     
-    # Check if all rownames start with "ENST"
-    if (!all(grepl("^ENST", rownames(DE)))) {
-      stop("Some rownames do not start with 'ENST'.")
-    }
-    
     ## Locate common transcripts
     is_gencode = all(grepl("^ENST.*?\\.", rownames(DE)))
     is_ensembl = all(grepl("^ENST", rownames(DE)) & !grepl("\\.", rownames(DE)))
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-DEqual.R b/tests/testthat/test-DEqual.R
index fe6df4f..de3a523 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-DEqual.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-DEqual.R
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ test_that("DEqual correctly processes random_de", {
   rownames(altered_random_de)[1] <- "INVALID0001" # Change the first rowname to an invalid one
   
   # Expect an error when rownames do not start with "ENST"
-  expect_error(DEqual(altered_random_de), "Error: Some rownames do not start with 'ENST'.")
+  expect_error(DEqual(altered_random_de), "The rownames of the input dataframe should be either GENCODE or ENSEMBL transcript IDs.")
 })
 
 # Test: None of the DE rownames are in degradation_tstats rownames