PRESS RELEASES
Please quote Nature Chemical Biology as the source of these items.
The July 2007 issue of Nature Chemical Biology is available online.
July 2007
Optimizing calcium detection
pp 423 - 431Scientists have developed a new small molecule, Calcium Green FlAsH, that can report on the location of calcium in cells, providing important information on the activation of calcium channels in the cell membrane, suggests a paper to be published online this week in Nature Chemical Biology.
The flow of calcium in and out of cells through calcium channels is highly controlled, as calcium serves as an important signal for a variety of biological processes. As a result, scientists have been trying to learn more about the behaviour of these channels by attaching fluorescent labels to them. However, the labels designed so far either detect calcium too quickly or too slowly, or they alter the behaviour of the channels.
Roger Tsien and colleagues report Calcium Green FlAsH — a molecule that combines the fluorescent reporting of Calcium Green with the ability to bind to a modified channel through an arsenic binding motif. Using this molecule, the authors were able to observe calcium flowing into the cell. In addition, by comparing the signal generated by this label with that from a related label, they made the surprising discovery that only a small percentage of the channels in the cell membrane open in response to a physical stimulus. This study raises new questions about the activity of calcium channels, and more importantly, it offers a new molecule that can help to answer those questions.
Calcium Green FlAsH as a genetically targeted small-molecule calcium indicator
pp 423 - 431Oded Tour, Stephen R Adams, Rex A Kerr, Rene M Meijer, Terrence J Sejnowski, Richard W Tsien and Roger Y Tsien
Published online: 17 June 2007 | doi 10.1038/nchembio.2007.4
