Citation

Calabrese A, Fraiman D, Zysman D, Ponce Dawson S. Phys. Rev. E Stat. Nonlin. Soft Matter Phys. 2010; 82(3 Pt 1): 031910.

Affiliation

Departamento de Física, FCEN-UBA, Ciudad Universitaria, Pabellón I, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina and Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Drive, New York, New York 10032, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, American Physical Society, Publisher American Institute of Physics)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

21230111

Abstract

Living organisms use waves that propagate through excitable media to transport information. Ca2+ waves are a paradigmatic example of this type of processes. A large hierarchy of Ca2+ signals that range from localized release events to global waves has been observed in Xenopus laevis oocytes. In these cells, Ca2+ release occurs trough inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs) which are organized in clusters of channels located on the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum. In this article we construct a stochastic model for a cluster of IP3R 's that replicates the experimental observations reported in [D. Fraiman, Biophys. J. 90, 3897 (2006)10.1529/biophysj.105.075911]. We then couple this phenomenological cluster model with a reaction-diffusion equation, so as to have a discrete stochastic model for calcium dynamics. The model we propose describes the transition regimes between isolated release and steadily propagating waves as the IP3 concentration is increased.

Language: en