Xenopus Resources: Transgenic, Inbred and Mutant Animals, Training Opportunities, and Web-Based Support

Abstract

Two species of the clawed frog family, Xenopus laevis and X. tropicalis , are widely used as tools to investigate both normal and disease-state biochemistry, genetics, cell biology, and developmental biology. To support both frog specialist and non-specialist scientists needing access to these models for their research, a number of centralized resources exist around the world. These include centers that hold live and frozen stocks of transgenic, inbred and mutant animals and centers that hold molecular resources. This infrastructure is supported by a model organism database. Here, we describe much of this infrastructure and encourage the community to make the best use of it and to guide the resource centers in developing new lines and libraries.

Reversible Thiol Oxidation Inhibits the Mitochondrial ATP Synthase in Xenopus laevis Oocytes

“…In-house bred X. laevis were maintained at the European Xenopus Resource Centre (EXRC) at 18 • C and fed daily on trout pellets [47]. Following ethical approval (#OLETHSHE1500), X. laevis oocytes were harvested, defolliculated with collagenase, and stored at −80 • C for biochemical analysis.…”

Xenopus Interferon Complex: Inscribing the Amphibiotic Adaption and Species-Specific Pathogenic Pressure in Vertebrate Evolution?

“…They reside in aquatic, terrestrial, and arboreal habitats, and are sensitive indicators for monitoring the environmental and habitat changes in our bio-ecosystem. In basic science research, amphibians have long been utilized as prominent models for studying physiological and developmental processes [21][22][23][24]. Due to the crucial role that amphibians play in both the ecosystem and experimental sciences, it is imperative to gain a better understanding of their immunobiology.…”

Novel vectors for functional interrogation of Xenopus ORFeome coding sequences

“…The Xenopus ORFeome is composed of full-length, validated, open reading frame (ORF) clones representing an estimated 10,250 genes for Xenopus laevis and 3,970 genes for Xenopus tropicalis, and is fully searchable on Xenbase, the Xenopus model organism database (Karimi et al, 2018). The production of the Xenopus ORFeome was a major advance in the ability of Xenopus as a model system to reveal developmental roles of proteins by promising to greatly facilitate protein function studies (Grant et al, 2015;Horb et al, 2019). The rate-limiting step in protein function studies can often be subcloning ORFs into different types of expression plasmids (e.g., CMV or SP6 promoters) with the appropriate epitope tags (e.g., GFP, flag, etc.)…”

“…T A B L E 4 Embryo treatments and head phenotype frequency T A B L E 5 Available rtTA and TRE lines in X. laevis(Grant et al, 2015;Horb et al, 2019) pDPCrtTA-TREG-HS4 Xla.Tg(CMV:RTTA, TRE:eGFP,cryga: GFP3)Buchz Ubiquitous rtTA expression, induces GFP upon addition of Dox GFP expression in eye pDPcol2.3rtTA-TRECre-HS4 Xla.Tg(col2a1:RTTA, TRE:Cre, cryga: GFP3)Buchz Expression of rtTA, CRE, and GFP in new cartilage GFP expression in eye Inducible CAR:TRDN-GFP Xla.Tg(actc1:dnthra-GFP)Brown Muscle-specific rtTA expression, induces TRDN upon addition of dox None Inducible NBT:TRDN-GFP Xla.Tg(tubb2b:dnthra-GFP)Brown Neuron-specific rtTA expression, induces TRDN upon addition of dox None Inducible collagen:TRDN-GFP Xla.Tg(Mmu.col1a2:dnthra-GFP)Brown Ubiquitous rtTA expression, induces TRDN upon addition of Dox None TRE lines pDRTREG-HS4 Xla.Tg(TRE:eGFP, cryga:dsRed)Buchz Dox-inducible GFP in presence of rtTA DsRed expression in eye pDRTREdpTR-HS4 Xla.Tg(TRE:dpthra, cryga:dsRed)Buchz Dox-inducible dpTR in presence of rtTA DsRed expression in eye…”

“…Embryo treatments and head phenotype frequency Available rtTA and TRE lines in X. laevis(Grant et al, 2015;Horb et al, 2019) …”