Capacitative calcium entry: sensing the calcium stores

A long-standing mystery in the cell biology of calcium channel regulation is the nature of the signal linking intracellular calcium stores to plasma membrane capacitative calcium entry channels. An RNAi-based screen of selected Drosophila genes has revealed that a calcium-binding protein, stromal interaction molecule (STIM), plays an essential role in the activation of these channels and may be the long sought sensor of calcium store content.     

Dynamics of calcium sparks and calcium leak in the heart

We present what we believe to be a new mathematical model of Ca²⁺ leak from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) in the heart. To our knowledge, it is the first to incorporate a realistic number of Ca²⁺-release units, each containing a cluster of stochastically gating Ca²⁺ channels (RyRs), whose biophysical properties (e.g., Ca²⁺ sensitivity and allosteric interactions) are informed by the latest molecular investigations. This realistic model allows for the detailed characterization of RyR Ca²⁺-release properties, and shows how this balances reuptake by the SR Ca²⁺ pump. Simulations reveal that SR Ca²⁺ leak consists of brief but frequent single RyR openings (∼3000 cell⁻¹ s⁻¹) that are likely to be experimentally undetectable, and are, therefore, “invisible”. We also observe that these single RyR openings can recruit additional RyRs to open, due to elevated local (Ca²⁺), and occasionally lead to the generation of Ca²⁺ sparks (∼130 cell⁻¹ s⁻¹). Furthermore, this physiological formulation of “invisible” leak allows for the removal of the ad hoc, non-RyR mediated Ca²⁺ leak terms present in prior models. Finally, our model shows how Ca²⁺ sparks can be robustly triggered and terminated under both normal and pathological conditions. Together, these discoveries profoundly influence how we interpret and understand diverse experimental and clinical results from both normal and diseased hearts.     

Dopaminergic reduction of intracellular calcium: the role of calcium influx

The effects of dopamine (DA) on 45Ca2+ ion movement and prolactin release in dispersed female rat anterior pituitary cells were studied to elucidate the mechanism for DA reduction of intracellular calcium levels. In 45Ca2+ prelabeled cells, DA inhibited fractional calcium efflux and prolactin release simultaneously and continuously in a concentration-dependent manner (IC50 20 nM DA). We then studied unidirectional calcium influx and observed haloperidol-reversible, concentration-dependent DA suppression of calcium influx into unlabeled cells. These data complement and extend reported fluorescent dye studies and suggest that dopamine primarily inhibits calcium influx, thereby reducing intracellular calcium levels, which leads to suppression of prolactin release and is manifest secondarily as a reduction in fractional 45Ca2+ efflux.     

Activation of the human red cell calcium ATPase by calcium pretreatment

Some kinetic parameters of the human red cell Ca²⁺-ATPase were studied on calmodulin-free membrane fragments following preincubation at 37°C. After 30 min treatment with EGTA(1 mm) plus dithioerythritol (1 mm), a V _max of about 0.4 μmol P_i/mg × hr and a K _s of 0.3 μm Ca²⁺ were found. When Mg²⁺ (10 mm) or Ca²⁺(10 μm) were also added during preincubation, V _maxbut not Kwas altered. Ca²⁺ was more effective than Mg²⁺, thus increasing V _max to about 1.3 μmol P_i/mg × hr. The presence of both Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ during pretreatment decreasedKto 0.15 μm, while having no apparent effect on V _max. Conversely, addition of ATP (2 mm) with either Ca²⁺ or Ca²⁺ plus Mg²⁺increased V_max without affecting K. Preincubation with Ca²⁺ for periods longer than 30 min further increased V_maxand reduced Kto levels as low as found with calmodulin treatment. The Ca²⁺ activation was not prevented by adding proteinase inhibitors (iodoacetamide, 10 mm; leupeptin, 200 μm; pepstatinA, 100 μm; phenylmethanesulfonyl fluoride, 100 μm). The electrophoretic pattern of membranes preincubated with or without Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺ or Ca²⁺ plus Mg²⁺ did not differ significantly from each other. Moreover, immunodetection of Ca²⁺-ATPase by means of polyclonal antibodiesrevealed no mobility change after the various treatments. The above stimulation was not altered by neomycin (200 μm), washing with EGTA (5 mm) or by both incubating and washing with delipidized serum albumin (1 mg/ml), or omitting dithioerythritol from the preincubation medium. On the other hand, the activation elicited by Ca²⁺ plus ATP in the presence of Mg²⁺ was reduced 25–30% by acridine orange (100 μm), compound 48/80 (100 μm) or leupeptin (200 μm) but not by dithio-bis-nitrobenzoic acid (1 mm). The fluorescence depolarization of 1,6-diphenyl-and l-(4-trimethylammonium phenyl)-6-phenyl 1,3,5-hexatriene incorporated into membrane fragments was not affected after preincubating under the different conditions. The results show that proteolysis, fatty acid production, an increased phospholipid metabolism or alteration of membrane fluidity are not involved in the Ca²⁺ effect. Ca²⁺ preincubation may stimulate the Ca²⁺-ATPase activity by stabilizing or promoting the E₁ conformation.     

Irreversible effects of calcium ions on the plasma membrane calcium pump

The calcium pump of human red cells can be irreversibly activated by preincubation of the membranes in the presence of calcium ions, with a pattern reminiscent of that produced by controlled trypsin attack. With 1 mm Ca²⁺, the activity of the basal enzyme increases three to fourfold over 30 to 60 min, to levels about half those obtained in the presence of calmodulin. On the whole, the effect occurs slowly, with a very low Ca²⁺ affinity at 37°C and is unaffected by serine-protease inhibitors. The activation caused by 1 mm Ca²⁺ is little affected by leupeptin (a thiol-protease inhibitor) and that obtained at 10 m Ca²⁺ is not inhibited. Preincubations at 0°C also lead to activation, to a level up to half that seen at 37°C, and the effect is not affected by leupeptin or antipain. No activation is observed by preincubating soluble purified Ca,Mg-ATPase in Ca²⁺-containing solutions at 37°C. Instead, calcium ions protect the detergent-solubilized enzyme from thermal inactivation, the effect being half-maximal between 10 and 20 m Ca²⁺. We conclude that the activation of the membrane-bound Ca,Mg-ATPase by Ca²⁺ should result from an irreversible conformational change in the enzyme and not from attack by a membrane-bound protease, and that this change presumably arises from the release of inhibitory particles existing in the original membrane preparations.We thank The Wellcome Trust for a research grant, the Medical Research Council for an equipment grant and the Regional Transfusion Service (Sheffield) for bank blood supplies.     

Role of the phospholipase C-inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate pathway in calcium release-activated calcium current and capacitative calcium entry

We investigated the putative roles of phospholipase C, polyphosphoinositides, and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP(3)) in capacitative calcium entry and calcium release-activated calcium current (I(crac)) in lacrimal acinar cells, rat basophilic leukemia cells, and DT40 B-lymphocytes. Inhibition of phospholipase C with blocked calcium entry and I(crac) activation whether in response to a phospholipase C-coupled agonist or to calcium store depletion with thapsigargin. Run-down of cellular polyphosphoinositides by concentrations of wortmannin that block phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase completely blocked calcium entry and I(crac). The membrane-permeant IP(3) receptor inhibitor, 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borane, blocked both capacitative calcium entry and I(crac). However, it is likely that 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borane does not inhibit through an action on the IP(3) receptor because the drug was equally effective in wild-type DT40 B-cells and in DT40 B-cells whose genes for all three IP(3) receptors had been disrupted. Intracellular application of another potent IP(3) receptor antagonist, heparin, failed to inhibit activation of I(crac). Finally, the inhibition of I(crac) activation by or wortmannin was not reversed or prevented by direct intracellular application of IP(3). These findings indicate a requirement for phospholipase C and for polyphosphoinositides for activation of capacitative calcium entry. However, the results call into question the previously suggested roles of IP(3) and IP(3) receptor in this mechanism, at least in these particular cell types.     

Characterizing the response of calcium signal transducers to generated calcium transients

Cellular Ca2+ transients and Ca2+-binding proteins regulate physiological phenomena as diverse as muscle contraction, neurosecretion, and cell division. When Ca2+ is rapidly mixed with slow Ca2+ chelators, EGTA, or Mg2+/EDTA, artificial Ca2+ transients (ACTs) of varying duration (0.1-50 ms half-widths (hws)) and amplitude can be generated. We have exposed several Ca2+ indicators, Ca2+-binding proteins, and a Ca2+-dependent enzyme to ACTs of various durations and observed their transient binding of Ca2+, complex formation, and/or activation. A 0.1 ms hw ACT transiently occupied approximately 70% of the N-terminal regulatory sites of troponin C consistent with their rapid Ca2+ on-rate (8.7 +/- 2.0 x 10(7) M-1 s-1). A 1.1 ms hw ACT produced approximately 90% transient binding of the N-terminal of calmodulin (CaM) to the RS-20 peptide, but little binding of CaM's C-terminal to RS-20. A 0.6 ms hw ACT was sufficient for the N-terminal of CaM to transiently bind approximately 60% of myosin light chain kinase (MLCK), while a 1.8 ms hw ACT produced approximately 22% transient activation of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+/ATPase. In both cases, the ACT had fallen back to baseline approximately 10-30 ms before maximal binding of CaM to MLCK or SR Ca2+/ATPase activation occurred and binding and enzyme activation persisted long after the Ca transient had subsided. The use of ACTs has allowed us to visualize how the Ca2+-exchange rates of Ca2+-binding proteins dictate their Ca2+-induced conformational changes, Ca2+-induced protein/peptide and protein/protein interactions, and enzyme activation and inactivation, in response to Ca2+ transients of various amplitude and duration. By characterizing the response of these proteins to ACTs, we can predict with greater certainty how they would respond to natural Ca2+ transients to regulate cellular phenomena.     

The effect of calcium load on the calcium permeability of sarcoplasmic reticulum

The effect of intravesicular and extravesicular calcium concentration on the passive efflux from sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) vesicles isolated from cardiac and skeletal muscle was determined by measuring net efflux of calcium after stopping pump-mediated fluxes. The apparent permeability, calculated as the passive efflux divided by the total intravesicular calcium, depended on calcium load. This dependence of the apparent permeability on calcium load could be explained by the presence of intravesicular calcium-binding sites with a dissociation constant less than 10(-3) M. When the intravesicular bound calcium was taken into account, passive calcium efflux was found to be linearly related to the difference in calcium concentration across the SR membrane. Thus the permeability of the SR membrane is independent of intravesicular and extravesicular calcium concentration in the ranges investigated. The average first order rate constant for passive calcium efflux for six preparations was 0.8 +/- 0.2 min-1 for skeletal and 0.7 +/- 0.1 min-1 for cardiac SR. The amount of intravesicular bound calcium for the same preparations was 33 +/- 6 nmol mg-1 for skeletal and 13 +/- 2 nmol mg-1 for cardiac SR. The first order rate constants were unaffected by Mg concentration between 0.1 +/- 15.1 mM and by the presence of an ATP-regenerating system. The results suggest that some minimal calcium load may be required in order to observe a substantial passive calcium efflux, the passive calcium efflux is not carrier mediated, and passive calcium efflux is not a likely route of calcium release during excitation-contraction coupling.     

Investigation of the effect of intracellular calcium on the cAMP-mediated increase in the calcium current

The experiments were conducted on intracellularly persfused neurons of the molluskHelix pomatia, in which a serotonin (5-HT)-induced increase in the calcium current (I_Ca), mediated by cAMP, is observed. It was established that desensitization of the cell to the action of 5-HT is due to an increase in the intracellular Ca²⁺ concentration ([Ca²⁺]_i). At [Ca²⁺]_i=10^–7 and 10^–6 M, the effect of 5-HT constituted 60 and 32% of this value in the control (in the presence of 10 mM EGTA in the intracellular solution), respectively; at [Ca²⁺]_i=10^–5 M, there was no effect of 5-HT at all. The addition of the calmodulin antagonist trifluoperazine (5·10^–5 mM) or blockers of phosphodiesterase (5 mM theophylline or 10^–4 M IBMX) to the perfusate sharply weakened the ability of calcium to inhibit the effect of 5-HT; at [Ca²⁺]_i=10^–5 M, in the presence of one of these compounds, the effect constituted 60–70% of its control value. It is concluded that the calcium-calmodulin-dependent phosphodiesterase is a key link in the interaction of the two-signal transduction pathway — Ca²⁺ and cAMP in modulation of the calcium-channel activity.A. A. Bogomolets Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 306–313, May–June, 1991.     

Structural modeling of calcium binding in the selectivity filter of the L-type calcium channel

Calcium channels play crucial physiological roles. In the absence of high-resolution structures of the channels, the mechanism of ion permeation is unknown. Here we used a method proposed in an accompanying paper (Cheng and Zhorov in Eur Biophys J, 2009) to predict possible chelation patterns of calcium ions in a structural model of the L-type calcium channel. We compared three models in which two or three calcium ions interact with the four selectivity filter glutamates and a conserved aspartate adjacent to the glutamate in repeat II. Monte Carlo energy minimizations yielded many complexes with calcium ions bound to at least two selectivity filter carboxylates. In these complexes calcium-carboxylate attractions are counterbalanced by calcium-calcium and carboxylate-carboxylate repulsions. Superposition of the complexes suggests a high degree of mobility of calcium ions and carboxylate groups of the glutamates. We used the predicted complexes to propose a permeation mechanism that involves single-file movement of calcium ions. The key feature of this mechanism is the presence of bridging glutamates that coordinate two calcium ions and enable their transitions between different chelating patterns involving four to six oxygen atoms from the channel protein. The conserved aspartate is proposed to coordinate a calcium ion incoming to the selectivity filter from the extracellular side. Glutamates in repeats III and IV, which are most distant from the repeat II aspartate, are proposed to coordinate the calcium ion that leaves the selectivity filter to the inner pore. Published experimental data and earlier proposed permeation models are discussed in view of our model.     

Calcium-dependent regulation of calcium efflux by the cardiac sodium/calcium exchanger

Allosteric regulation by cytosolic Ca²⁺ of Na⁺/Ca²⁺ exchange activity in the Ca²⁺ efflux mode has received little attention because it has been technically difficult to distinguish between the roles of Ca²⁺ as allosteric activator and transport substrate. In this study, we used transfected Chinese hamster ovary cells to compare the Ca²⁺ efflux activities in nontransfected cells and in cells expressing either the wild-type exchanger or a mutant, (241–680), that operates constitutively; i.e., its activity does not require allosteric Ca²⁺ activation. Expression of the wild-type exchanger did not significantly lower the cytosolic Ca²⁺ concentration ([Ca²⁺]_i) compared with nontransfected cells. During Ca²⁺ entry through store-operated Ca²⁺ channels, Ca²⁺ efflux by the wild-type exchanger became evident only after [Ca²⁺]_i approached 100–200 nM. A subsequent decline in [Ca²⁺]_i was observed, suggesting that the activation process was time dependent. In contrast, Ca²⁺ efflux activity was evident under all experimental conditions in cells expressing the constitutive exchanger mutant. After transient exposure to elevated [Ca²⁺]_i, the wild-type exchanger behaved similarly to the constitutive mutant for tens of seconds after [Ca²⁺]_i had returned to resting levels. We conclude that Ca²⁺ efflux activity by the wild-type exchanger is allosterically activated by Ca²⁺, perhaps in a time-dependent manner, and that the activated state is briefly retained after the return of [Ca²⁺]_i to resting levels. persistent calcium activation; store-operated channels; calcium transient