title: Evidence that quantal Ca2+ release in HSG cells is not due to 'all-or-none' release from discrete Ca2+ stores with differing sensitivities to IP3.
abstract: We demonstrate that the application of the muscarinic agonist carbachol to the human salivary epithelial cell line HSG elicits the now well-known phenomenon of 'quantal' Ca2+ release; namely, that the application of a submaximal concentration of agonist results in the release of only a portion of the agonist-sensitive intracellular Ca2+ pool. One explanation that has been proposed to account for this effect is that there are multiple intracellular Ca2+ stores, each with a different agonist sensitivity, which release Ca2+ in an 'all-or-none' fashion. We test this hypothesis in intact HSG cells with an experimental protocol designed to preferentially load less-agonist-sensitive stores with 40Ca2+ and more-agonist-sensitive stores with 45Ca2+. However, contrary to the expectations of the above explanation, these cells do not preferentially release 45Ca2+ in response to low concentrations of agonist. Thus our data suggest that quantal Ca2+ release must arise from some other property of the stores or their Ca2+ release channels.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moran
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Turner
mesh_terms: D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D015220:Calcium Channels / Q000502:physiology; D002217:Carbachol / Q000494:pharmacology; D002460:Cell Line; D004847:Epithelial Cells; D006801:Humans; D015544:Inositol 1,4,5-Trisphosphate / Q000378:metabolism*; D018721:Muscarinic Agonists / Q000494:pharmacology; D012469:Salivary Glands
chemical_list: D015220:Calcium Channels; D018721:Muscarinic Agonists; D015544:Inositol 1,4,5-Trisphosphate; D002217:Carbachol; D002118:Calcium