Fig. 9. Effect of LPP3 in Xenopus axial patterning. (A-C) Effect of murine LPP3 mRNA injection in Xenopus embryo development. Stage 36 larvae (A) uninjected, (B) injected dorsally or (C) ventrally with 1 ng of mLPP3 mRNA. Inserts show translated LPP3 protein. Note that only the larvae injected dorsally had abnormal anterior development. (D-H) In situ hybridization of un-injected and dorsally injected Xenopus embryos with markers for anterior development (stage 22). (D,E) Xotx2 detection in uninjected (bottom) and dorsally injected (top) embryos. Some injected embryos lacked (D) or had reduced (E) Xotx2 expression. Reduced and fused eyes can be observed in the injected embryo (E, arrow). (F) Xpax6 detection in uninjected (bottom) and dorsally injected (top) embryos. Injected embryos lacked distinguishable eye staining. (G) Embryos injected ventrally with Xwnt3a show a duplicated axis. (H) Co-injection of mLPP3 with Xwnt3a mRNA rescues secondary axis formation but results in a weak dorsalizalized phenotype. (I) Axis duplication induced by ventral injection of Xwnt8. (J) Co-injection of Xwnt8 with LPP3 mRNA inhibited axis duplication, but the embryos still retained a weak dorsalization phenotype.

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