Retroviral Gene Transduction in Limb Bud Micromass Cultures

Since Solursh and his coworkers set up the limb bud micromass cultures in 1977 (1 ), this procedure has become a major model to analyze cellular and molecular event involved in chondrogenesis (2 –7 ). Recently, RCAS retroviral vectors have been developed that can infect chicken embryos in ovo . These have advanced our understanding in limb bud patterning remarkably (8 ). Here we describe a newly developed protocol to merge these two procedures, which will make micromass culture an even more powerful model for the analysis of chondrogenic mechanisms.