Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1987 Dec 4;51(5):861-7.
doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90109-7.

A maternal mRNA localized to the vegetal hemisphere in Xenopus eggs codes for a growth factor related to TGF-beta

D L Weeks  1 , D A Melton
Affiliations

A maternal mRNA localized to the vegetal hemisphere in Xenopus eggs codes for a growth factor related to TGF-beta

D L Weeks et al. Cell. .

Abstract

We report that Vg1, a maternal mRNA localized to the vegetal hemisphere of frog eggs, encodes a member of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) family of proteins. Furthermore, we show that Vg1 mRNA is distributed to presumptive endodermal cells after fertilization. Previous studies had shown that the vegetal end of a frog egg produces a signal that induces the overlying animal pole cells to form mesodermal tissue. More recently it has been shown that fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and TGF-beta can participate in the induction of muscle. Together, these results lead us to propose that the formation of mesoderm during frog development is specified by the products of localized maternal mRNAs, including Vg1.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types

Associated data