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Fig. 3. Head defects induced by McerP-BMP4, Xnr1 and Xwnt8 microinjection in the frog embryo. Embryos were injected at the four-to-eight-cell stage in the two dorsal-vegetal blastomeres. (A-C) Injection of 80 pg of CMV.BMP4 (A; 100%, n=22), CMV.Xnr1(B; 94%, n=17) and CMV.Xwnt8 (C; 20%, n=25) led to very severe phenotypes. (D-F) Injection of 20 pg (F; 60%, n=20), 40 pg (E; 62%, n=34) and 80 pg (D; 50%, n=24) of McerP-BMP4 showed a concentration dependent increase in head truncation. (G-I) A progressive head reduction and loss of eye were observed when 20 pg (I; 100%, n=26), 40 pg (H; 24%, n=21) and 80 pg (G; 59%, n=34) of McerP-Xnr1. (J-L) Increasing the amount of McerP-Xwnt8 from 20 pg (L; 60%, n=25) to 40 pg (K; 62%, n=28) to 80 pg (J; 74%, n=19) resulted in loss of cement gland and cyclopia and ultimately in complete truncation of the head. (M,N) Synergistic effect of McerP-BMP4, Xnr1 and Xwnt8 is shown by the coinjection of 8 pg (N; 65%, n=23) and 20 pg (M; 63%, n=46) of each construct which resulted in more severe defects than the ones observed in embryos injected with equal amounts of the individual constructs (F,I and L). 20 pg of McerP-lacZ was coinjected to access the correct targeting of the promoters to the ADE (yellow arrowheads in E, H and K). Image published in: Silva AC et al. (2003) Copyright © 2003. Image reproduced with permission of the publisher and the copyright holder. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. Larger Image Printer Friendly View

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