Precision of intracellular calcium spike timing in primary rat hepatocytes |
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Authors: | Prank K Waring M Ahlvers U Bader A Penner E Möller M Brabant G Schöfl C |
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Institution: | NRW Graduate School in Bioinformatics and Genome Research, Centre of Biotechnology, Bielefeld University, Germany. klaus.prank@cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de |
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Abstract: | Extracellular stimuli are often encoded in the frequency, amplitude and duration of spikes in the intracellular concentration of calcium (Ca2+]i). However, the timing of individual Ca2+]i-spikes in relation to the dynamics of an extracellular stimulus is still an open question. To address this question, we use a systems biology approach combining experimental and theoretical methods. Using computer simulations, we predict that more naturalistic pulsed stimuli generate precisely-timed Ca2+]i-spikes in contrast to the application of constant stimuli of the same dose. These computational results are confirmed experimentally in single primary rat hepatocytes upon alpha1-adrenergic stimulation. Hormonal signalling in analogy to neuronal signalling thus has the potential to make use of temporal coding on the level of single cells. The Ca2+]i-signalling cascade provides a first example for increasing the information capacity of an intracellular regulatory signal beyond the known coding mechanisms of amplitude (AM) and frequency modulation (FM). |
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