Developmental mutants isolated from wild-caught Xenopus laevis by gynogenesis and inbreeding.

Xenopus laevis obtained from indigenous African populations are a rich source of mutants affecting development. Gynogenesis and inbreeding were used to isolate mutants affecting development from wild-caught Xenopus laevis females. Fourteen mutants were recovered from eight females tested. One mutant was recovered from each of two females. This load of 1.875 developmental mutants per female is similar to that found in the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), a urodele amphibian, and is only slightly less than the load of mutants with major developmental effects found in Drosophila and man. These results suggest that the anuran amphibian Xenopus laevis, an ancestrally tetraploid species, has undergone extensive diploidization of developmentally important loci and that gynogenesis and inbreeding of wild-caught animals can provide adequate mutants at diploid loci for developmental genetic studies.