title: A microinjectable biological system, the Xenopus oocyte, as an approach to understanding signal transduction protein function.
abstract: To study protein function in cellular signaling, manual microinjection is a direct technique, but limited by the small size of many cells. The giant vertebrate cell, the Xenopus laevis oocyte, is a perfect model system to perform these studies. Oocytes are numerous and synchronous cells, arrested in the G2 phase of the cell cycle and easily amenable to biochemical, electrophysiological, and cytological studies. We describe how to microinject proteins or peptides in this model and we study, as an example, the Grb2 transduction cascade.
authors.affiliation: Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, Laboratoire de Régulation des Signaux de Division, Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Katia
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cailliau
authors.forename: Edith
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Browaeys-Poly
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002469:Cell Separation; D048430:Cell Shape; D005260:Female; D008845:Microinjections / Q000379:methods*; D009865:Oocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D010052:Ovariectomy; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D015398:Signal Transduction; D029867:Xenopus Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D014982:Xenopus laevis / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D029867:Xenopus Proteins