Xenopus laevis....take note :)

[Ricardo Moro]

Dear Lisa:

Xenopus is a wonderful frog. I got all exited once when in 
Uruguay a fellow by the name of Phillips form England went there 
and gave a chat on how he proved that DNA is not lost in the 
differentiation process of a cell. His work (circa 1965) 
consisted in finding 2 variantsw of Xenopus one with 1 nucleole 
and the other with 2. He then took the nucleous of ONE cell 
(intestinal, but then he also did it with neurons (these do not 
normally divide!!!!!)) and placed it inside an irradiated egg 
cell. The donor had 1 nucleole and the the recipient 2 (or 
viceversa). That way he KNEW where the genetic material came 
from. He used to get ~ 7% rate of success and fully developed and 
healthy frogs!!!.

It is the first cloning experiment I know of and he should have 
gotten the Nobel for that one, but...

Beatiful papers if you are interested in research in general and 
Xenopus in particular.

Regards, Ricardo Moro, Vancouver.

-- 
Ricardo Moro