IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v392y1998i6679d10.1038_31960.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Calcium oscillations increase the efficiency and specificity of gene expression

Author

Listed:
  • Ricardo E. Dolmetsch

    (Children's Hospital, Harvard University)

  • Keli Xu
  • Richard S. Lewis

    (Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine)

Abstract

Cytosolic calcium ([Ca2+]i) oscillations are a nearly universal mode of signalling in excitable and non-excitable cells1,2,3,4. Although Ca2+ is known to mediate a diverse array of cell functions, it is not known whether oscillations contribute to the efficiency or specificity of signalling or are merely an inevitable consequence of the feedback control of [Ca2+]i. We have developed a Ca2+ clamp technique to investigate the roles of oscillation amplitude and frequency in regulating gene expression driven by the proinflammatory transcription factors NF-AT, Oct/OAP and NF-κB. Here we report that oscillations reduce the effective Ca2+ threshold for activating transcription factors, thereby increasing signal detection at low levels of stimulation. In addition, specificity is encoded by the oscillation frequency: rapid oscillations stimulate all three transcription factors, whereas infrequent oscillations activate only NF-κB. The genes encoding the cytokines interleukin (IL)-2 and IL-8 are also frequency-sensitive in a way that reflects their degree of dependence on NF-AT versus NF-κB. Our results provide direct evidence that [Ca2+]i oscillations increase both the efficacy and the information content of Ca2+ signals that lead to gene expression and cell differentiation.

Suggested Citation

  • Ricardo E. Dolmetsch & Keli Xu & Richard S. Lewis, 1998. "Calcium oscillations increase the efficiency and specificity of gene expression," Nature, Nature, vol. 392(6679), pages 933-936, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:392:y:1998:i:6679:d:10.1038_31960
    DOI: 10.1038/31960
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/31960
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/31960?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yu, Guang & Yi, Ming & Jia, Ya & Tang, Jun, 2009. "A constructive role of internal noise on coherence resonance induced by external noise in a calcium oscillation system," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 273-283.
    2. Gabriele Micali & Gerardo Aquino & David M Richards & Robert G Endres, 2015. "Accurate Encoding and Decoding by Single Cells: Amplitude Versus Frequency Modulation," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-21, June.
    3. Alok Maity & Roy Wollman, 2020. "Information transmission from NFkB signaling dynamics to gene expression," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(8), pages 1-16, August.
    4. Martin Rückl & Ian Parker & Jonathan S Marchant & Chamakuri Nagaiah & Friedrich W Johenning & Sten Rüdiger, 2015. "Modulation of Elementary Calcium Release Mediates a Transition from Puffs to Waves in an IP3R Cluster Model," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, January.
    5. Agne Tilūnaitė & Wayne Croft & Noah Russell & Tomas C Bellamy & Rüdiger Thul, 2017. "A Bayesian approach to modelling heterogeneous calcium responses in cell populations," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-25, October.
    6. Andreja Jovic & Bryan Howell & Michelle Cote & Susan M Wade & Khamir Mehta & Atsushi Miyawaki & Richard R Neubig & Jennifer J Linderman & Shuichi Takayama, 2010. "Phase-Locked Signals Elucidate Circuit Architecture of an Oscillatory Pathway," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(12), pages 1-8, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:392:y:1998:i:6679:d:10.1038_31960. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.