Abstract
Nuclei of amphibian oocytes (“germinal vesicles”) can grow to considerable size. For example, the nucleus of a mature Xenopus laevis oocyte has a diameter of about 0.5 mm and, after isolation, can be seen with the naked eye. This exceptional size (for comparison, the diameter of somatic cell nuclei usually ranges from 5 to 30 μm), the ease and rapidity with which they can be manually isolated, and the occurrence of lampbrush chromosomes and amplified nucleoli makes amphibian nuclei choice material not only for studies of chromosome structure and genetic activity at different levels of resolution, but also for analysis of the biochemical composition of individual nuclei and nuclear components as well. A single manually isolated nucleus from an amphibian oocyte is sufficient to analyze its major protein constituents by gel electrophoresis, and a few nuclei provide sufficient RNA for analysis by gel electrophoresis or electron microscopic spreading methods. In addition, the size of amphibian oocyte nuclei greatly facilitates the introduction of certain substances by microinjection. In fact, Xenopus oocytes are presently used in numerous laboratories as “living test tubes” to study the expression of cloned DNA sequences after microinjection into their nuclei with the aim of identifying those DNA sequences necessary for transcriptional initiation and termination events, as well as the factors involved in gene regulation.
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Scheer, U., Dabauvalle, MC. (1985). Functional Organization of the Amphibian Oocyte Nucleus. In: Browder, L.W. (eds) Oogenesis. Developmental Biology, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6814-8_9
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