TY - JOUR TI - Regulatory elements of Xenopus col2a1 drive cartilaginous gene expression in transgenic frogs AU - Kerney, Ryan AU - Hall, BrianK. AU - Hanken, James T2 - The International Journal of Developmental Biology AB - This study characterizes regulatory elements of collagen 2alpha1 (col2a1) in Xenopus that enable transgene expression in cartilage-forming chondrocytes. The reporters described in this study drive strong cartilage-specific gene expression, which will be a valuable tool for further investigations of Xenopus skeletal development. While endogenous col2a1 mRNA is expressed in many embryonic tissues, its expression becomes restricted to tadpole and adult chondrocytes. This chondrocyte-specific expression is recapitulated by col2a1 reporter constructs, which were tested through I-SceI meganuclease-mediated transgenesis. These constructs contain a portion of the Xenopus tropicalis col2a1 intron, which aligns to a cartilage-specific intronic enhancer that has been well characterized in mammals. Two overlapping regions of the first intron that are 1.5-Kb and 665-bp long, both of which contain this enhancer sequence, drove EGFP expression in both larval and adult chondrocytes when connected to an upstream promoter. However, neither a truncated 155-bp region that also contains the enhancer, nor a separate 347-bp intronic region that lacks it, was able to drive cartilaginous transgene expression. The two cartilage-specific transgenes are heritable in F1 progeny, which exhibit none of the background expression observed in the injected founders. This study is the first to use the I-SceI technique to characterize an enhancer element in Xenopus, and the first to generate chondrocyte-specific gene expression in a non-mammalian vertebrate. The creation of novel cartilage-specific gene expression provides a new tool for further studies of anuran skeletal development. PY - 2010 DO - 10.1387/ijdb.092848rk VL - 54 IS - 1 SP - 141 EP - 150 J2 - Int. J. Dev. Biol. LA - en SN - 0214-6282 SN - 1696-3547 UR - https://ijdb.ehu.eus/article/092848rk Y2 - 2024/11/23/16:24:10 ER -