Chemokines are a family of proteins originally identified for their activity promoting the recruitment of leukocytes to inflammatory sites. Recent evidence indicates that chemokines and their receptors may also regulate key developmental processes. In this paper we report the expression and regulation of the chemokine CXCL14 during Xenopus laevis embryogenesis. CXCL14 is first detected in sever...

The spatio-temporal expression of connexin43 in Xenopus laevis embryos was studied by in situ hybridization. Cx43 expression is first detected at stage 25 in the developing eye. In stage 32, expression was found in the margin of the lens placode, the cement gland, notochord, and in stage 37 in the branchial arches. Early limb buds show strong expression of Cx43 distally while later on expressio...

Although there have been extensive studies on the larval adhesion of acorn barnacles over the past few decades, little is known about stalked barnacles. For the first time, we describe the larval adhesive systems in the stalked barnacle, Octolasmis angulata and the findings differ from previous reports of the temporary (antennulary) and cement glands in thoracican barnacles. We have found that ...

The barnacle, Amphibalanus amphitrite, is a common marine fouling organism. Understanding the mechanism of barnacle adhesion will be helpful in resolving the fouling problem. Barnacle cement is thought to play a key role in barnacle attachment. Although several adult barnacle cement proteins have been identified in Megabalanus rosa, little is known about their function in barnacle settlement. I...

A novel protein, Smsp-72k, was found to be selectively expressed in the silk gland of aquatic larvae of the Stenopsychid caddisfly (Stenopsyche marmorata). The protein was characterized by an abundance of cysteine (13.97%) and charged residues (47.21%). Amino acids with hydroxyl side-chains accounted for an additional 10% of the Smsp-72k protein, with serine at 4.4% and threonine at 5.6%. A cys...

Recently, we demonstrated that the Xenopus Wnt effector XTcf-3 interacts with Groucho-related transcriptional repressors (Roose et al., 1998. Nature 395, 608-612). A long form of the Groucho-related genes, XGrg-4, was shown to repress axis formation in the Xenopus embryo, whereas a short form, XGrg-5, acted as a potentiator. In this study, the temporal and spatial expression of XGrg-4 and XGrg-...

The larvae of the fish Astyanax mexicanus transiently develop a flat and adhesive structure on the top of their heads that we have called "the casquette" (cas, meaning "hat"). We hypothesized that the cas may be a teleostean homolog of the well-studied Xenopus cement gland, despite their different positions and structures. Here we show that the cas has an ectodermal origin, secretes mucus, expr...

ADAMs are membrane-anchored proteases that regulate cell behavior by proteolytically modifying the cell surface and ECM. Like other membrane-anchored proteases, ADAMs contain candidate "adhesive" domains downstream of their metalloprotease domains. The mechanism by which membrane-anchored cell surface proteases utilize these putative adhesive domains to regulate protease function in vivo is not...