BACKGROUND During pregnancy, myometrial gene and protein expression is tightly regulated to accommodate fetal growth, promote quiescence and ultimately prepare for the onset of labour. It is proposed that changes in calcium signalling, may contribute to regulating gene expression and that nuclear factor of activated T-cell (NFAT) transcription factors (isoforms c1-c4) may be involved. Currently...

The addition of the calcium ionophore A23187 to rabbit neutrophils increases the amount of actin associated with the cytoskeleton regardless of the presence or absence of calcium in the incubation medium. In the presence of extracellular calcium, the effect of A23187 is biphasic with respect to concentration. The action of the ionophore is rapid, transient, and is inhibited by pertussis toxin, ...

OBJECTIVE Artificial oocyte activation (AOA) is an effective method to avoid total fertilization failure in human in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET) cycles. AOA performed using a calcium ionophore can induce calcium oscillation in oocytes and initiate the fertilization process. We evaluated the usefulness of AOA with a calcium ionophore in cases of total fertilization failure in pr...

Photoresponsive ion extraction/release systems (PRIONERS) represent a highly interesting tool for the localized and time-controlled chemical perturbation of biological materials. We report here on our first results on phototriggered calcium and sodium exchanging materials. Such materials exist in two distinct states ("on" and "off"), depending on the wavelength of illumination. We used a combin...

The divalent metal cation ionophore A23187 induces an acrosome reaction in guinea-pig sperm which is dependent on external calcium. Examination of this acrosome reaction by electron microscopy shows that it is morphologically normal. The known properties of A23187 and the morphological similarity between the acrosome reaction and the secretory discharges of other secretory cells suggests that t...

A nondisruptive technique developed by Bellomo et al. (Bellomo, G., Jewell, S. A., Thor, H., and Orrenius, S. (1982) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79, 6842-6846) has been used to examine the distribution of calcium ions between mitochondrial and extramitochondrial compartments in the perfused rat liver. The amount of calcium released by the uncoupler 2,4-dinitrophenol from the mitochondrial com...

Gap junctional conductance (gj) between cardiac ventricular myocyte pairs is rapidly, substantially, and reversibly reduced by sarcoplasmic acidification with CO2 when extracellular calcium activity is near physiological levels (1.0 mM CaCl2 added; 470 microM Ca++). Intracellular calcium concentration (Cai), measured by fura-2 fluorescence in cell suspensions, was 148 +/- 39 nM (+/- SEM, n = 6)...

It has been proposed that the release of intracellular ionic calcium may be the universal factor promoting activation of egg metabolism at fertilization. If this hypothesis is valid, then fertilization and all parthenogenetic agents which evoke the entire program of activation would necessarily involve an intracellular rise in ionic calcium. Fertilization or parthenogenetic activation of Lytech...

Eosinophils possess both oxygen-dependent and oxygen-independent mechanisms for damaging helminthic parasites such as schistosomula. We have studied the release of the granular enzymes beta-glucuronidase and arylsulfatase to evaluate the oxidative requirement for degranulation. Both ionophore-mediated and immunoglobulin G-mediated release of granular enzymes were enhanced in the presence of oxy...