Grafting Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) Limb Skin and Cartilage from GFP+ Donors to Normal Hosts
- 1 Institute of Metabolic Physiology, Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany
- 2 Center for Regenerative Therapies, Dresden University of Technology, 01307 Dresden, Germany
- 3 Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, 01307 Dresden, Germany
- ↵4Corresponding author (elly.tanaka{at}crt-dresden.de)
INTRODUCTION
A remarkable property of axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) is their amenability to grafting at any stage of the life cycle. In addition to the ease of transplantation in embryonic axolotls, the graftability of tissues extends to larval, juvenile, and adult tissues. Amazingly, there seems to be no rejection of tissue grafts from individual to individual. Grafting techniques have been important for studying tissue contributions to the blastema and other cellular aspects of blastema formation, growth, and patterning. This protocol describes grafting of axolotl limb skin and cartilage from green fluorescent protein (GFP)+ donors to normal hosts.
