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. 2012 Oct 1;3:22. doi: 10.1186/2041-9139-3-22

Figure 3.

Figure 3

NvSmad1/5 induces expression of downstream BMP pathway genes in the frog embryo. After animal pole injection of XSmad1 or NvSmad1/5 at the 2-cell stage, stage 11 animal caps show elevated expression of genes downstream of the BMP pathway. (A) Depiction of the animal cap assay procedure; animal caps were processed for western blot or RT-PCR when control embryos reached mid-gastrulation (Niewkoop and Faber stage 11). The western blot shows protein translation levels in injected and uninjected whole embryos (L = Benchmark protein ladder, showing the 58-kDa band). XSmad1 and NvSmad1/5 show equal levels of translation, whereas the uninjected embryos show no background signal. (B) Real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qPCR) shows fold induction levels of BMP pathway response genes Vent1, Vent2, Msx1, and Xhox3 compared to the uninjected whole embryos. Uninjected Xenopus animal caps (UN), animal caps injected with XSmad1, and animal caps injected with NvSmad1/5 are shown. The Y-axis of all RT-PCR graphs shows the fold induction compared to endogenous whole embryo (1.0). Error bars indicate the standard error.