... have mainly involved systems for tracing a single gene, which are limited in their ability to facilitate direct comparisons of the contributions of different cell lineages. We have developed a new combinatorial system for tracing all three germ layers using self-cleaving 2A peptides and multiple site...

...Masumi Tokuhisa; Miyuki Muto; Hiroki Nishida The animal-vegetal (A-V) axis is already set in unfertilized eggs. It plays crucial roles in coordinating germ-layer formation. However, how the A-V axis is set has not been well studied. In ascidians, unfertilized eggs are already polarized along...

... germ layer specification, and that this early function is probably independent of the recognised role of Lin28 proteins in negatively regulating let-7 miRNA biogenesis. Total RNA was isolated using miRVana miRNA Isolation Kit (Applied Biosystems). cDNA was synthesized with miRNA-specific primers...

...Fiona C. Wardle; James C. Smith During blastula and gastrula stages of Xenopus development, cells become progressively and asynchronously committed to a particular germ layer. We have analysed the expression of genes normally expressed in ectoderm,mesoderm or endoderm in individual cells from early...

...Douglas W. Houston; Christopher Wylie One of the earliest lineage restriction events in embryogenesis is the specification of the primary germ layers: ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. In Xenopus , germ layer specification occurs prior to gastrulation and requires the transcription factor VegT both...