Using optical techniques to quantitate intracellular calcium signals.

SILVINA PONCE DAWSON

Seminario; Coloquio del Departamento de Física, University of Stellenbosch, Sudáfrica; 2010

The use of microscopy techniques and calcium dyes allows the observation of intracellular calcium signals in situ with minimum disruption. The processes that underlie calcium signals are characterized by time and spatial scales that span several orders of magnitude. There is no single experimental technique that allows the simultaneous observation of all these scales. Thus, the combination of modeling and experiments is unavoidable to reach a comprehensive picture of calcium signals. For this interaction to be fruitful the quantification in situ of biophysical parameters of interest is of great importance. In this talk I will discuss how to analyze calcium imaging experiments to quantitate key parameters for the dynamics of calcium signals.