Inducible gene expression in transgenic Xenopus embryos

Wheeler, Grant N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4335-8577, Hamilton, Fiona S and Hoppler, Stefan (2000) Inducible gene expression in transgenic Xenopus embryos. Current Biology, 10 (14). pp. 849-852. ISSN 0960-9822

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Abstract

The amphibian Xenopus laevis has been successfully used for many years as a model system for studying vertebrate development. Because of technical limitations, however, molecular investigations have mainly concentrated on early stages. We have developed a straightforward method for stage-specific induction of gene expression in transgenic Xenopus embryos [1] [2]. This method is based on the Xenopus heat shock protein 70 (Xhsp70 [3]) promoter driving the expression of desired gene products. We found that ubiquitous expression of the transgene is induced upon relatively mild heat treatment. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) was used as a marker to monitor successful induction of gene expression in transgenic embryos. We used this method to study the stage specificity of Wnt signalling function. Transient ectopic Wnt-8 expression during early neurulation was sufficient to repress anterior head development and this capacity was restricted to early stages of neurulation. By transient over-expression at different stages of development, we show that frizzled-7 disrupted morphogenesis sequentially from anterior to posterior along the dorsal axis as development proceeds. These results demonstrate that this method for inducible gene expression in transgenic Xenopus embryos will be a very powerful tool for temporal analysis of gene function and for studying molecular mechanisms of vertebrate organogenesis.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	animals,animals, genetically modified,cytoskeletal proteins,gene expression regulation, developmental,genes, reporter,green fluorescent proteins,hsp70 heat-shock proteins,luminescent proteins,phenotype,promoter regions, genetic,proteins,recombinant fusion proteins,signal transduction,wnt proteins,xenopus laevis,zebrafish proteins
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Cells and Tissues
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	11 Aug 2015 16:08
Last Modified:	19 Apr 2023 00:47
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/54064
DOI:	10.1016/S0960-9822(00)00596-0

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