A novel digital imaging system with high temporal resolution revealed that intracellular Ca2+ transients in cardiac myocytes originate locally and spread non-uniformly during the initial 60 milliseconds.
Local Ca2+ origin with early non-uniformity in myocytes extends cellular models; hypothesis-generating, no clinical translation yet.
To examine the origin and spreading of the Ca2+ transient following electrical stimulation of isolated myocyte, a system capable of recording intracellular Ca2+ distribution with sufficient temporal and spatial resolution was constructed. The system consists of a fluorescence microscope with computer-controlled pulse illumination and a digital image analyzer. The results with this new equipment show that the Ca2+ transient originates from one or a few points within a myocyte, and spreads throughout the cell. During the initial 60-msec period, the distribution of Ca2+ within a myocyte was not uniform. The system may be used for better understanding of the excitation-contraction coupling mechanism occurring within a cardiac myocyte or of changes in intracellular Ca2+ concentrations in other cells in which Ca2+ plays a crucial role in signal transduction.
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Akera et al. (1990) studied this question.
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