Abstract
Embryos of the amphibian Xenopus laevis have been used as a model system for the analysis of developmental mechanisms since the 1950s. As described by Gurdon (1), one of the reasons for the popularity of Xenopus is that it is easy to obtain large numbers of embryos. This is illustrated by the fact that until the mid-1950s, Xenopus was used as a pregnancy test in humans: injection of urine from a pregnant woman into the dorsal lymph sac of a female Xenopus causes the frog to lay eggs. This simple assay can readily be applied only to Xenopus, for as Gurdon points out, to persuade Rana species to lay eggs, it is necessary to inject homogenized pituitary glands, a procedure that, furthermore, only works at certain times of the year. Thus, Xenopus is the easiest amphib’ian species from which to obtain embryos, especially as it is now possible to buy human chorionic gonadotrophin from Sigma (St. Louis, MO), thus circumventing the requirement, in a busy developmental biology laboratory, for a constant supply of pregnant colleagues.
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© 1999 Humana Press Inc.
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Jones, C.M., Smith, J.C. (1999). An Overview of Xenopus Development. In: Sharpe, P.T., Mason, I. (eds) Molecular Embryology. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 97. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-270-8:331
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-270-8:331
Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ
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