Journal
JOVE-JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS
Volume -, Issue 85, Pages -Publisher
JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS
DOI: 10.3791/50697
Keywords
Developmental Biology; Issue 85; craniofacial development; neural crest; Mouth; Nostril; transplantation; Xenopus
Categories
Funding
- NIH [R01DE021109]
- Herschel Smith Graduate Fellowship at Harvard University
- F30 individual fellowship through the NIDCR [F30DE022989-01]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Craniofacial birth defects occur in 1 out of every 700 live births, but etiology is rarely known due to limited understanding of craniofacial development. To identify where signaling pathways and tissues act during patterning of the developing face, a 'face transplant' technique has been developed in embryos of the frog Xenopus laevis. A region of presumptive facial tissue (the Extreme Anterior Domain (EAD)) is removed from a donor embryo at tailbud stage, and transplanted to a host embryo of the same stage, from which the equivalent region has been removed. This can be used to generate a chimeric face where the host or donor tissue has a loss or gain of function in a gene, and/or includes a lineage label. After healing, the outcome of development is monitored, and indicates roles of the signaling pathway within the donor or surrounding host tissues. Xenopus is a valuable model for face development, as the facial region is large and readily accessible for micromanipulation. Many embryos can be assayed, over a short time period since development occurs rapidly. Findings in the frog are relevant to human development, since craniofacial processes appear conserved between Xenopus and mammals.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available