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Confocal Imaging of Early Heart Development in Xenopus laevis
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Confocal Imaging of Early Heart Development in Xenopus laevis

Sandra J Kolker, Urszula Tajchman and Daniel L Weeks
Developmental biology, Vol.218(1), pp.64-73
02/01/2000
DOI: 10.1006/dbio.1999.9558
PMCID: PMC3568754
PMID: 10644411
url
https://doi.org/10.1006/dbio.1999.9558View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Xenopus laevis provides a number of advantages to studies on cardiovascular development. The embryos are fairly large, are easy to obtain, and can develop at ambient temperature in simple buffer solutions. Although classic descriptions of heart development exist, the ability to use whole-mount immunohistochemical methods and confocal microscopy may enhance the ability to understand both normal and experimentally perturbed cardiovascular development. We have started to examine the early stages of cardiac development in Xenopus, seeking to identify antibodies and fixatives that allow easy examination of the developing heart. We have used monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) raised against bovine cardiac troponin T and chicken tropomyosin to visualize cardiac muscle, a goat antibody recognizing bovine type VI collagen to stain the lining of vessels, and the JB3 mAb raised against chicken fibrillin, which allows the visualization of a variety of cardiovascular tissues during early development. Results from embryonic stages 24–46 are presented.
Xenopus confocal microscopy heart development

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