SSRP1-mediated histone H1 eviction promotes replication origin assembly and accelerated development by Lucia Falbo, Erica Raspelli, Francesco Romeo, Simona Fiorani, Federica Pezzimenti, Francesca Casagrande, Ilaria Costa, Dario Parazzoli, Vincenzo Costanzo

“…Here, the authors shed light on the mechanism by revealing that SSRP1 stimulates replication origin assembly on somatic nuclei in Xenopus laevis egg extract by promoting histone H1 eviction from somatic chromatin.…”
Get full text

Mechanosensitivity is an essential component of phototransduction in vertebrate rods. by Ulisse Bocchero, Fabio Falleroni, Simone Mortal, Yunzhen Li, Dan Cojoc, Trevor Lamb, Vincent Torre

“…By combining electrophysiology, optical tweezers (OTs), and biochemistry, we investigate mechanosensitivity in the rods of Xenopus laevis, and we show that 1) mechanosensitive channels (MSCs), transient receptor potential canonical 1 (TRPC1), and Piezo1 are present in rod inner segments (ISs); 2) mechanical stimulation-of the order of 10 pN-applied briefly to either the OS or IS evokes calcium transients; 3) inhibition of MSCs decreases the duration of photoresponses to bright flashes; 4) bright flashes of light induce a rapid shortening of the OS; and 5) the genes encoding the TRPC family have an ancient association with the genes encoding families of protein involved in phototransduction. …”
Get full text

Booting up the organism during development: Pre-behavioral functions of the vertebrate brain in guiding body morphogenesis by Celia Herrera-Rincon, Michael Levin

“…A recent study in Xenopus laevis embryos showed that the very early brain has important functions long before behavior. …”
Get full text

Origin of the Amphibian Chytrid Fungus by Ché Weldon, Louis H. du Preez, Alex D. Hyatt, Reinhold Muller, Rick Speare

“…The earliest case of chytridiomycosis found was in a Xenopus laevis frog in 1938, and overall prevalence was 2.7%. …”
Get full text

A Method for Mechanism Analysis of Frog Swimming Based on Motion Observation Experiments by Wei Zhang, Jizhuang Fan, Yanhe Zhu, Yulong Qiu, Jie Zhao

“…In this paper, an aquatic frog, Xenopus laevis , was chosen for analysis of swimming motions which were recorded by a high speed camera, and kinematic data were processed in a swimming data extraction platform. …”
Get full text

Lower vertebrates of Sehlabathebe National Park, Lesotho by G. Kopij

“…The following species were recorded: snakes Lamprophis aurora, L. fuscus, Hemachatus haemachatus, Bitis arietans, B. atropos; lizards Trachylepsis punctatissima, Tropidosaura montana, Pseudocordylus melanotus, Afroedura nivaria; amphibians (anurans) Xenopus laevis laevis, Bufo gariepensis nubicolus, Cacosternum striatum, Amietia dracomontana, A. angloensis, A. fuscigula, A. umbraculata, Strongylopus fasciatus, Semnodactylus wealii; fishes Labeobarbus aeneus, Pseudobarbus quathlambae and Oncorhynchus mykiss. …”
Get full text

Reconstitution of the recombinant human γ-tubulin ring complex by Martin Würtz, Anna Böhler, Annett Neuner, Erik Zupa, Lukas Rohland, Peng Liu, Bram J. A. Vermeulen, Stefan Pfeffer, Sebastian Eustermann, Elmar Schiebel

“…Cryo-electron microscopy recently resolved the structure of the vertebrate γ-tubulin ring complex (γ-TuRC) purified from Xenopus laevis egg extract and human cells to near-atomic resolution. …”
Get full text

(AT)n is an interspersed repeat in the Xenopus genome. by Greaves, D, Patient, R

“…We have observed (AT)34 and (AT)23 tracts close to the coding sequences of the Xenopus laevis tadpole alpha T1 and adult beta 1 globin genes, respectively. …”

GABAergic circuits control stimulus-instructed receptive field development in the optic tectum. by Richards, B, Voss, O, Akerman, C

“…We recorded from neurons in the developing optic tectum of Xenopus laevis and found that repeated presentation of moving visual stimuli induced receptive field changes that reflected the properties of the stimuli and that this form of learning was disrupted when GABAergic transmission was blocked. …”

Calcium-dependent neuroepithelial contractions expel damaged cells from the developing brain by Herrgen, L, Voss, OP, Akerman, CJ

“…Using in vivo imaging in the developing brain of Xenopus laevis, we show that ATP release from damaged cells and subsequent activation of purinergic receptors induce long-range calcium waves in neural progenitor cells. …”

Cyclin B degradation leads to NuMA release from dynein/dynactin and from spindle poles. by Gehmlich, K, Haren, L, Merdes, A

“…Using extracts from Xenopus laevis eggs, we show that NuMA is dephosphorylated in anaphase and released from dynein and dynactin. …”

Germ layer induction in ESC--following the vertebrate roadmap. by Smith, J, Wardle, F, Loose, M, Stanley, E, Patient, R

“…This unit reviews what is known about the embryonic signals that drive differentiation in one of the most informative of the vertebrate animal models of development, the amphibian Xenopus laevis. It summarizes their identities and the extent to which their activities are dose-dependent. …”

Altered Glutaminase 1 Activity During Neurulation and Its Potential Implications in Neural Tube Defects by Camila Benavides-Rivas, Lina Mariana Tovar, Nicolás Zúñiga, Ingrid Pinto-Borguero, Claudio Retamal, Gonzalo E. Yévenes, Gustavo Moraga-Cid, Jorge Fuentealba, Leonardo Guzmán, Claudio Coddou, Luisa Bascuñán-Godoy, Patricio A. Castro

“…The present investigation describes for the first time the presence and functionality of GLS1 in Xenopus laevis embryos during neurulation. Although protein expression levels remains constant, the catalytic activity of GLS1 increases significantly (~66%) between early (stage 12) and middle to late (stages 14–19) neurulation process. …”
Get full text

The metamorphosis of amphibian toxicogenomics by Caren eHelbing

“…Of the thousands of species, only two have substantial genomics resources: the recently published genome of the Pipid, Xenopus (Silurana) tropicalis, and transcript information (and ongoing genome sequencing project) of Xenopus laevis. However, many more species representative of regional ecological niches and life strategies are used in toxicology worldwide. …”
Get full text

Single-species microarrays and comparative transcriptomics. by Frédéric J J Chain, Dora Ilieva, Ben J Evans

“…We used the Affymetrix Xenopus laevis microarray to evaluate expression divergence between X. laevis, X. borealis, and their F1 hybrids. …”
Get full text

Expression, purification and low-resolution structure of human vitamin C transporter SVCT1 (SLC23A1). by Rajendra Boggavarapu, Jean-Marc Jeckelmann, Daniel Harder, Philipp Schneider, Zöhre Ucurum, Matthias Hediger, Dimitrios Fotiadis

“…To this aim, we successfully expressed the human vitamin C transporter-1 (hSVCT1; SLC23A1) in Xenopus laevis oocytes and isolated highly pure protein in microgram amounts. …”
Get full text

Renal localization and regulation by dietary phosphate of the MCT14 orphan transporter. by Thomas Knöpfel, Alexander Atanassoff, Nati Hernando, Jürg Biber, Carsten A Wagner

“…In order to identify the transport substrate(s), we expressed MCT14 in Xenopus laevis oocytes where MCT14 was integrated into the plasma membrane. …”
Get full text

Trypanosoma Brucei Aquaglyceroporins Facilitate the Uptake of Arsenite and Antimonite in a pH Dependent Way by Néstor L. Uzcátegui, Katherine Figarella, Bjoern Bassarak, Nestor W. Meza, Rita Mukhopadhyay, Jose L. Ramirez, Michael Duszenko

“…Methods and Results: In order to test their ability to transport trivalent arsenic and antimony, we expressed the three known Trypanosoma brucei aquaglyceroporins (TbAQPs) in the heterologous systems of yeast null aquaporin mutant and Xenopus laevis oocytes. For both expression systems, we found a pH dependent intracellular accumulation of As(III) or Sb(III) mediated by all of the three TbAQPs, with the exception of TbAQP1-As(III) uptake. …”
Get full text

Complicated behavior of G-quadruplexes and evaluating G-quadruplexes' ligands in various systems mimicking cellular circumstance by Shi-Ke Wang, Hua-Fei Su, Yu-Chao Gu, Shu-Ling Lin, Jia-Heng Tan, Zhi-Shu Huang, Tian-Miao Ou

“…In this study, the topology and stability of a G-quadruplex formed by human telomeric repeat sequences were investigated in a macromolecule-crowded environment created by polyethylene glycol 200 (PEG200), tumor cell extract, and Xenopus laevis egg extract. The interactions between small molecules and telomeric G-quadruplexes were also evaluated in the different systems. …”
Get full text

Gamma-tubulin coordinates nuclear envelope assembly around chromatin by Catalina Ana Rosselló, Lisa Lindström, Johan Glindre, Greta Eklund, Maria Alvarado-Kristensson

“…Here, we show that γ-tubulin is located throughout the chromatin of demembranated Xenopus laevis sperm and, as the nucleus is formed, γ-tubulin recruits lamin B3 and nuclear membranes. …”
Get full text