Fertilization of Xenopus oocytes using the Host Transfer Method

Summary

Procedure for fertilizing Xenopus oocytes by the host transfer method.

Abstract

Studying the contribution of maternally inherited molecules to vertebrate early development is often hampered by the time and expense necessary to generate maternal-effect mutant animals. Additionally, many of the techniques to overexpress or inhibit gene function in organisms such as Xenopus and zebrafish fail to sufficiently target critical maternal signaling pathways, such as Wnt signaling. In Xenopus, manipulating gene function in cultured oocytes and subsequently fertilizing them can ameliorate these problems to some extent. Oocytes are manually defolliculated from donor ovary tissue, injected or treated in culture as desired, and then stimulated with progesterone to induce maturation. Next, the oocytes are introduced into the body cavity of an ovulating host female frog, whereupon they will be translocated through the host's oviduct and acquire modifications and jelly coats necessary for fertilization. The resulting embryos can then be raised to the desired stage and analyzed for the effects of any experimental perturbations. This host-transfer method has been highly effective in uncovering basic mechanisms of early development and allows a wide range of experimental possibilities not available in any other vertebrate model organism.

Protocol

1. Surgical Removal of Ovary Tissue

1. Prepare a fresh batch of oocyte culture medium (OCM; Materials), between 400-800 mL depending on the size of the experiment. Adjust the pH to 7.6-7.8, until the phenol red turns a dark red color (six or so small drops of 5N NaOH). Pour out a small amount to check the pH in a separate tube since the pH electrode may contaminate the media. OCM should be stored at 18°C and used within a week.
2. Select 3-5 females and place one in ~ 2L buffered anesthetic solution (Materials). We try to avoid using frogs that were fed on the day of or prior to surgery. While the frog is succumbing to the anesth....

Discussion

A successful transfer will result in fertilization and normal cleavage of > 50% of the oocytes (Figure 3). Generally between 30-60% of the transferred oocytes will survive past the neurula stages. We usually transfer 75-150 oocytes per experimental group, which will yield enough embryos for several types of analysis (in situ, RT-PCR) as well as visualizing the phenotype. Implanting substantially more oocytes does not seem to greatly increase the yield. Also, at least 30 oocytes per group should be transferred to guara.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Solutions and recipes:
OCM (Oocyte culture medium; modified from Wylie et al., 1996)
70% Leibovitz’s L-15 medium (containing l-glutamine)	Invitrogen	11415-064
0.4 mg/ml Bovine serum albumin (BSA; fraction V)	Sigma-Aldrich	A-9418-50g
1x Penicillin-Streptomycin	Sigma-Aldrich	P-0781
Adjust to pH 7.6-7.8 with 5N NaOH
Make fresh weekly, store at 18°C.
10X MMR (Marc’s Modified Ringer’s Solution; Zuck et al., 1998)
1M NaCl
20 mM KCl
20 mM CaCl2
10 mM MgCl2
150 mM HEPES
adjust to pH 7.6-7.8
Store at 4°C
Anesthetic solution
1 g/L 3-Aminobenzoic Acid Ethyl Ester (MS222)	Sigma-Aldrich	A-5040
0.7 g/L sodium bicarbonate
Dissolve in Amquel-treated water
Make fresh weekly
Progesterone stocks
10 mM Progesterone (Sigma P- 0130) in 100% Ethanol
Dilute to 1 mM in 100% EtOH for a 500x stock/working solution
Store at -20°C
Vital dyes (modified from Heasman et al., 1991)
Blue: 0.1% Nile Blue A	Aldrich	121479-5G
Red: 0.25% Neutral Red	Sigma-Aldrich	N-6634
Brown: 1% Bismarck Brown	Sigma-Aldrich	B-2759
Green (80 μl blue + 80 μl brown),
Mauve (80 μl blue + 80 μl red).
A sixth color, Orange (80 μl red+ 80 μl brown), can also be used but is often hard to distinguish from brown.
Stocks of Blue, Red and Brown are made up in deionized water in 50 ml tubes, incubated for 20 minutes with rocking and spun in a clinical centrifuge. The supernatants are aliquotted into microfuge tubes and stored at -20°C.