Editorial: The Xenopus laevis genome

Harland, Richard M.; Gilchrist, Michael J.

doi:10.1016/j.ydbio.2017.04.016

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Frogs as amphibians, of course, are distant from humans genetically, but they share a common tetrapod ancestry that is closer in evolutionary time than bony fish. The complete genome sequencing and careful annotation of both species reveal an astonishingly high degree of synteny with humans; even in the duplicated genome of X. laevis, because the two sets of chromosomes do not crossover, there has been less sub-functionalization of duplicated copies [Hellsten et al, 2010;Session et al, 2016;Harland and Gilchrist, 2017]. Close to 90% of human disease genes have homologs in both Xenopus species, and sequence conservation is generally high, a prerequisite for any predictive animal model.…”

Section: The African Frog Xenopusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Xenopus: An Undervalued Model Organism to Study and Model Human Genetic Disease

Blum

Ott

2018

Cells Tissues Organs

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The function of normal and defective candidate genes for human genetic diseases, which are rapidly being identified in large numbers by human geneticists and the biomedical community at large, will be best studied in relevant and predictive model organisms that allow high-speed verification, analysis of underlying developmental, cellular and molecular mechanisms, and establishment of disease models to test therapeutic options. We describe and discuss the pros and cons of the frog Xenopus, which has been extensively used to uncover developmental mechanisms in the past, but which is being underutilized as a biomedical model. We argue that Xenopus complements the more commonly used mouse and zebrafish as a time- and cost-efficient animal model to study human disease alleles and mechanisms.

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Section: The African Frog Xenopusmentioning

confidence: 99%