[Xenopus] floating frogs

[Ilaria Mazzeo]

Hi all,
I work at CIBIO - Trento (Italy) where we have a Xenopus colony.

We have been experiencing a problem with some of our frogs and I was
wondering if someone has faced the same problem.
We have some J strain frogs which show buyoancy problems: they are not able
to dive and some of these frogs look like filled with air.
We already had this problem some years ago, in the end we decided to
sacrifice the frogs and their lungs where more inflated than usual.

This time we tried to put them in a tank out of the system in a less deep
water without recirculation (but water was changed daily) and in a couple
of days they regained the capacity to dive.
When I put them back in the system they started to float at the surface
water after a short time.

Apart from these, frog appareance is fine and we only have this problem
with J strain frohs (both males and females).
I read it could be the GBD but at a first look under the microscope I could
not find any sign of it. And also, some weeks ago we sacrificed one and
internally there was not air accumulation.

So, if you have any suggestions, clues or previous experience, any help is
welcome!

Best
Ilaria

Ilaria Mazzeo, PhD
Model Organism Facility
Center for Integrative Biology (CIBIO)
University of Trento
Via Sommarive 9
38123 Povo (TN)
*39 0461 285340
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