title: Aequorin-based genetic approaches to visualize Ca2+ signaling in developing animal systems.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In recent years, as our understanding of the various roles played by Ca2+ signaling in development and differentiation has expanded, the challenge of imaging Ca2+ dynamics within living cells, tissues, and whole animal systems has been extended to include specific signaling activity in organelles and non-membrane bound sub-cellular domains.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this review we outline how recent advances in genetics and molecular biology have contributed to improving and developing current bioluminescence-based Ca2+ imaging techniques. Reporters can now be targeted to specific cell types, or indeed organelles or domains within a particular cell.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These advances have contributed to our current understanding of the specificity and heterogeneity of developmental Ca2+ signaling. The improvement in the spatial resolution that results from specifically targeting a Ca2+ reporter has helped to reveal how a ubiquitous signaling messenger like Ca2+ can regulate coincidental but different signaling events within an individual cell; a Ca2+ signaling paradox that until now has been hard to explain.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Techniques used to target specific reporters via genetic means will have applications beyond those of the Ca2+ signaling field, and these will, therefore, make a significant contribution in extending our understanding of the signaling networks that regulate animal development. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Biochemical, biophysical and genetic approaches to intracellular calcium signalling.
authors.affiliation: Division of Life Science and State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. barnie@ust.hk
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Webb
authors.forename: Andrew L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000331:Aequorin / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D020013:Calcium Signaling; D047108:Embryonic Development; D015870:Gene Expression; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence
chemical_list: D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D000331:Aequorin