Two distinguished international experts offer a fully illustrated, thoroughly referenced guide to the use of microinjected Xenopus embryos to study the role and spatiotemporal regulation of nervous system proteins during vertebrate development. Drs. Seidman and Soreq include all the basic scientific background and protocols needed to consider and exploit the vast potential of this model system. They provide an outline of Xenopus development, detailed methods for in vitro fertilization and microinjection, and protocols and references for a variety of biochemical and histochemical techniques to analyze the results of a microinjection experiment. They also present extensive experimental data illustrating the use of enzyme activity assays, gel electrophoresis, density ultracentrifugation, EAIA, RT-PCR, cytochemical and immunocytochemical staining, and electron microscopy. Transgenic Xenopus demonstrates convincingly the special utility of Xenopus embryo microinjection as a sophisticated and versatile tool for studying nervous system proteins.