Studying calcium signal reshaping by buffers observing the competition of two dyes.

ESTEFANÍA PIEGARI*, LUCÍA LOPEZ, LORENA SIGAUT AND SILVINA PONCE DAWSON

San Diego, California

Congreso; Biophysical Society 56th Annual Meeting; 2012

Biophysical Society

Ca2+ signaling is ubiquitous across cell types. Ca liberation through inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs) is a key component of the Ca signaling toolkit. The specificity anduniversality of intracellular calcium signals rely on the variety of spatio-temporal patterns that the concentration of this ion can display. It has been observed by I. Parker andcollaborators that buffers can shape these patterns in different ways depending on their kinetics. In this work we study how these different effects may arise by observing IP 3R-mediated Ca2+ signals using two dyes simultaneously. To this end we use a multispectral confocal microscope and two dyes (Fluo-4 and Rhod-2) that differ in their binding kinetics andemission spectra. In this way we are able to study the competition between the two dyes probing the effect of their different kinetics on the observed signals.