TROPLIST: tropicalis HCG

[Jorgensen, Paul Conrad]

Dear all,
We've had some success restoring HCG-responsiveness to our trop colony, from which we had found it difficult to get females to lay eggs.  Please see the details in the message from Brian Frederick below.  All comments welcome!
Paul

Paul Jorgensen, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral fellow, Kirschner Laboratory
Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School
200 Longwood Avenue, Alpert 536
Boston, MA, 02115
U.S.A.
Ph: (617)-432-2294
paul_jorgensen@hms.harvard.edu

Hi Everyone,

I manage the Xenopus facilities for Dr. Marc Kirschner here at Harvard Medical School. We have in the past (not since at least a year ago) purchased tropicalis from both Nasco and X. Express. We had mixed success with the frogs from both vendors. We now breed our own in house. We always had great success with the laevis we got from Nasco. We now breed our own of that species as well. We have found with tropicalis, much more than with laevis; that newly purchased, newly mature individuals we raise, or older individuals who have not been used for procedures for quite some time often produce eggs or sperm poorly. Using a successive PMSG priming protocol we were able to rescue good production with our older individuals. We then started using it with all new arrivals, albeit from purchases or breeding, with similar success.
We prime each female and male with 20IU (0.2ml) PMSG every 10 days for 3 treatments. Following this, HCG injection has been much more successful overall (not 100%, but very good). I'm not sure exactly why this has worked. I suspect the reproductive organs don't develop as quickly as is currently thought and for older individuals may mimic sterility if not used on a regular basis.
I hope this helps anyone who would like to try it. Please post any successes or failures. As far as who to purchase from now for immediate use, I can't say which vendor is better. You might try contacting the Grainger lab at UVA directly to see if they would sell you some. I'm not sure if they still do this.
Feel free to post this to the list, as I am unsure whether I have posting privileges.

Thanks

Brian Frederick


Brian W. Frederick, MS LAT
Assistant Operations Manager/Animal Specialist
Department of Systems Biology
Harvard Medical School, WAB 561A
200 Longwood Ave., Boston MA 02115
Phone 1: 617-432-7106
Fax: 617-432-5012


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