Abstract
Xenopus tropicalis was introduced as a model system for genetic, and then genomic research, in the early 1990s, complementing work on the widely used model organism Xenopus laevis. Its shorter generation time and diploid genome has facilitated a number of experimental approaches. It has permitted multigenerational experiments (e.g., preparation of transgenic lines and generation of mutant lines) that have added powerful approaches for research by the Xenopus community. As a diploid animal, its simpler genome was sequenced before X. laevis, and has provided a highly valuable resource indispensable for all Xenopus researchers. As more sophisticated transgenic technologies for manipulating gene expression are developed, and mutations, particularly null mutations, are identified in widely studied genes involved in critical cellular and developmental processes, researchers will increasingly turn to X. tropicalis for definitive analysis of complex genetic pathways. This chapter describes the historical and conceptual development of X. tropicalis as a genetic and genomic model system for higher vertebrate development.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Harland RM, Grainger RM (2011) Xenopus research: metamorphosed by genetics and genomics. Trends Genet 27(12):507–515
Brown DD, Gurdon JB (1964) Absence of ribosomal RNA synthesis in the anucleolate mutant of Xenopus laevis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 51:139–146
Krotoski DM, Reinschmidt DC, Tompkins R (1985) Developmental mutants isolated from wild-caught Xenopus laevis by gynogenesis and inbreeding. J Exp Zool 233(3):443–449
Droin A (1992) The developmental mutants of Xenopus. Int J Dev Biol 36(4):455–464
Graf JD, Kobel HR (1991) Genetics of Xenopus laevis. Methods Cell Biol 36:19–34
Voss SR, Epperlein HH, Tanaka EM (2009) Ambystoma mexicanum, the axolotl: a versatile amphibian model for regeneration, development, and evolution studies. Cold Spring Harb Protoc 2009(8):pdb emo128
Porter KR (1939) Androgenetic development of the egg of Rana pipiens. Biol Bull 77:233–257
Freed JJ, Mezger-Freed L (1970) Stable haploid cultured cell lines from frog embryos. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 65(2):337–344
Briggs R, King TJ (1952) Transplantation of living nuclei from blastula cells into enucleated frogs’ eggs. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 38(5):455–463
Gurdon JB, Byrne JA (2003) The first half-century of nuclear transplantation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 100(14):8048–8052
de Sa RO, Hillis DM (1990) Phylogenetic relationships of the pipid frogs Xenopus and Silurana: an integration of ribosomal DNA and morphology. Mol Biol Evol 7(4):365–376
Hellsten U, Khokha MK, Grammer TC, Harland RM, Richardson P, Rokhsar DS (2007) Accelerated gene evolution and subfunctionalization in the pseudotetraploid frog Xenopus laevis. BMC Biol 5:31
Hellsten U, Harland RM, Gilchrist MJ, Hendrix D, Jurka J, Kapitonov V et al (2010) The genome of the Western clawed frog Xenopus tropicalis. Science 328(5978): 633–636
Amaya E, Offield MF, Grainger RM (1998) Frog genetics: Xenopus tropicalis jumps into the future. Trends Genet 14(7):253–255
Hirsch N, Zimmerman LB, Grainger RM (2002) Xenopus, the next generation: X. tropicalis genetics and genomics. Dev Dyn 225(4):422–433
Khokha MK, Chung C, Bustamante EL, Gaw LW, Trott KA, Yeh J et al (2002) Techniques and probes for the study of Xenopus tropicalis development. Dev Dyn 225(4):499–510
Morin RD, Chang E, Petrescu A, Liao N, Griffith M, Chow W et al (2006) Sequencing and analysis of 10,967 full-length cDNA clones from Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis reveals post-tetraploidization transcriptome remodeling. Genome Res 16(6):796–803
Tymowska J (1973) Karyotype analysis of Xenopus tropicalis Gray, Pipidae. Cytogenet Cell Genet 12(5):297–304
Kashiwagi K, Kashiwagi A, Kurabayashi A, Hanada H, Nakajima K, Okada M et al (2010) Xenopus tropicalis: an ideal experimental animal in amphibia. Exp Anim 59(4):395–405
Noramly S, Zimmerman L, Cox A, Aloise R, Fisher M, Grainger RM (2005) A gynogenetic screen to isolate naturally occurring recessive mutations in Xenopus tropicalis. Mech Dev 122(3):273–287
Tompkins R (1978) Triploid and gynogenetic diploid Xenopus laevis. J Exp Zool 203:251–256
Kawahara H (1978) Production of triploid and gynogenetic diploid Xenopus by cold treatment. Dev Growth Differ 20(3):227–236
Henry JJ, Grainger RM (1990) Early tissue interactions leading to embryonic lens formation in Xenopus laevis. Dev Biol 141:149–163
Grammer TC, Khokha MK, Lane MA, Lam K, Harland RM (2005) Identification of mutants in inbred Xenopus tropicalis. Mech Dev 122(3):263–272
Mullins MC, Hammerschmidt M, Haffter P, Nusslein-Volhard C (1994) Large-scale mutagenesis in the zebrafish: in search of genes controlling development in a vertebrate. Curr Biol 4(3):189–202
Justice MJ, Noveroske JK, Weber JS, Zheng B, Bradley A (1999) Mouse ENU mutagenesis. Hum Mol Genet 8(10):1955–1963
Riley BB, Grunwald DJ (1995) Efficient induction of point mutations allowing recovery of specific locus mutations in zebrafish. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 92(13):5997–6001
Goda T, Abu-Daya A, Carruthers S, Clark MD, Stemple DL, Zimmerman LB (2006) Genetic screens for mutations affecting development of Xenopus tropicalis. PLoS Genet 2(6):e91
Beck CW, Izpisua Belmonte JC, Christen B (2009) Beyond early development: Xenopus as an emerging model for the study of regenerative mechanisms. Dev Dyn 238(6): 1226–1248
Wells DE, Gutierrez L, Xu Z, Krylov V, Macha J, Blankenburg KP et al (2011) A genetic map of Xenopus tropicalis. Dev Biol 354(1):1–8
Reinschmidt D, Friedman J, Hauth J, Ratner E, Cohen M, Miller M et al (1985) Gene-centromere mapping in Xenopus laevis. J Hered 76(5):345–347
Khokha MK, Krylov V, Reilly MJ, Gall JG, Bhattacharya D, Cheung CY et al (2009) Rapid gynogenetic mapping of Xenopus tropicalis mutations to chromosomes. Dev Dyn 238(6):1398–1446
Abu-Daya A, Sater AK, Wells DE, Mohun TJ, Zimmerman LB (2009) Absence of heartbeat in the Xenopus tropicalis mutation muzak is caused by a nonsense mutation in cardiac myosin myh6. Dev Biol 336(1):20–29
Abu-Daya A, Nishimoto S, Fairclough L, Mohun TJ, Logan MP, Zimmerman LB (2011) The secreted integrin ligand nephronectin is necessary for forelimb formation in Xenopus tropicalis. Dev Biol 349(2):204–212
Geach TJ, Zimmerman LB (2010) Paralysis and delayed Z-disc formation in the Xenopus tropicalis unc45b mutant dicky ticker. BMC Dev Biol 10:75
Sive HL, Grainger RM, Harland RM (2000) Early development of Xenopus laevis: a laboratory manual. Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor
Klein SL, Strausberg RL, Wagner L, Pontius J, Clifton SW, Richardson P (2002) Genetic and genomic tools for Xenopus research: The NIH Xenopus initiative. Dev Dyn 225(4): 384–391
Klein SL, Gerhard DS, Wagner L, Richardson P, Schriml LM, Sater AK et al (2006) Resources for genetic and genomic studies of Xenopus. Methods Mol Biol 322:1–16
Vogel G (1999) Frog is a prince of a new model organism. Science 285(5424):25
Stemple DL (2004) TILLING–a high-throughput harvest for functional genomics. Nat Rev Genet 5(2):145–150
Winkler S, Schwabedissen A, Backasch D, Bokel C, Seidel C, Bonisch S et al (2005) Target-selected mutant screen by TILLING in Drosophila. Genome Res 15(5): 718–723
Moens CB, Donn TM, Wolf-Saxon ER, Ma TP (2008) Reverse genetics in zebrafish by TILLING. Brief Funct Genomic Proteomic 7(6):454–459
Young JJ, Cherone JM, Doyon Y, Ankoudinova I, Faraji FM, Lee AH et al (2011) Efficient targeted gene disruption in the soma and germ line of the frog Xenopus tropicalis using engineered zinc-finger nucleases. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108(17):7052–7057
Lund E, Sheets MD, Imboden SB, Dahlberg JE (2011) Limiting Ago protein restricts RNAi and microRNA biogenesis during early development in Xenopus laevis. Genes Dev 25(11):1121–1131
Chen CM, Chiu SL, Shen W, Cline HT (2009) Co-expression of Argonaute2 enhances short hairpin RNA-induced RNA interference in Xenopus CNS neurons in vivo. Front Neurosci 3:63
Ogino H, Fisher M, Grainger RM (2008) Convergence of a head-field selector Otx2 and Notch signaling: a mechanism for lens specification. Development 135(2):249–258
Akkers RC, van Heeringen SJ, Jacobi UG, Janssen-Megens EM, Francoijs KJ, Stunnenberg HG et al (2009) A hierarchy of H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 acquisition in spatial gene regulation in Xenopus embryos. Dev Cell 17(3):425–434
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges contributions to developing the X. tropicalis system from lab members Lyle Zimmerman, Nicolas Hirsch, Selina Noramly, Jei Chae, Hui Wang, Hong Jin, Hajime Ogino, Takuya Nakayama, Marilyn Fisher, Margaret Fish and Matthew Etzell. Research on X. tropicalis was supported by grants to R.M.G. from the National Institutes of Health RR013221, EY019000 and EY017400. Grants to R.M.G. from NIH also support a National Xenopus Resource (RR025867) and National TILLING Resource (HD065713).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Grainger, R.M. (2012). Xenopus tropicalis as a Model Organism for Genetics and Genomics: Past, Present, and Future. In: HOPPLER, S., Vize, P. (eds) Xenopus Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 917. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-992-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-992-1_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ
Print ISBN: 978-1-61779-991-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-61779-992-1
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols