Can I read In vitro induction of the pronephric duct in Xenopus explants on EtoBox?

In vitro induction of the pronephric duct in Xenopus explants by Kenji Osafune; Ryuichi Nishinakamura; Shinji Komazaki; Makoto Asashima is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is In vitro induction of the pronephric duct in Xenopus explants about?

The earliest form of embryonic kidney, the pronephros, consists of three components: glomus, tubule and duct. Treatment of the undifferentiated animal pole ectoderm of __Xenopus laevis__ with activin A and retinoic acid (RA) induces formation of the pronephric tubule and glomus. In this study, the rate of induction of the pronephric duct, the third component of the pronephros, was investigated in animal caps treated with activin A and RA. Immunohistochemistry using pronephric duct‐specific antibody 4A6 revealed that a high proportion of the treated explants contained 4A6‐positive tubular structures. Electron microscopy showed that the tubules in the explants were similar to the pronephric ducts of normal larvae, and they also expressed __Gremlin__ and __c‐ret__, molecular markers for pronephric ducts. These results suggest that the treatment of __Xenopus__ ectoderm with activin A and RA induces a high rate of differentiation of pronephric ducts, in addition to the differentiation of the pronephric tubule and glomus, and that this __in vitro__ system can serve as a simple and effective model for analysis of the mechanism of pronephros differentiation.

Author

Kenji Osafune; Ryuichi Nishinakamura; Shinji Komazaki; Makoto Asashima

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (Blackwell Publishing); Blackwell Publishing Inc.; Wiley (ISSN 0012-1592)

Published

2002

Language

EN