Xenopus cell lines.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the uses of Xenopus cell lines for two main purposes: transfection studies and in the purification of Xenopus tissue culture-mesoderm-inducing factor (XTC-MIF), a potent MIF and a homolog of activin A. Xenopus laevis is a popular experimental animal for many reasons. One is that Xenopus is easy and relatively inexpensive to keep. Xenopus has the advantages that the embryos are easy to obtain, they are plentiful, they develop quickly, they are accessible to manipulation at all developmental stages, and they are large. These advantages also apply to the other uses to which Xenopus embryos are put: studies of egg maturation and of metamorphosis. For the cell biologist, the Xenopus egg and oocyte provide useful “living test-tubes” into which one can microinject messenger RNAs (mRNAs), antisense oligonucleotides, or antibodies to study the function of the molecules encoded by, or recognized by, these reagents. The chapter also describes transfection of Xenopus cell lines and XTC-MIF.