Research: Hop to it

Professor Jim Smith and colleagues have used a 'morpholino oligonucleotide' (MO) screen to eliminate the activity of more than 200 genes involved in early development of the frog Xenopus tropicalis (a diploid relative of the more commonly used X. laevis).

As well as revealing how loss of gene function affects development, the work suggests that a genome-wide MO approach – based on chemical analogues of short RNAs – is feasible in this emerging model organism.

External link

• Rana AA et al. Defining synphenotype groups in Xenopus tropicalis by use of antisense morpholino oligonucleotides. PLoS Genet 2006;2(11):e193.