par Dupont, Geneviève 
Référence Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Systems Biology and Medicine, 6, 3, page (227-237)
Publication Publié, 2014
Référence Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Systems Biology and Medicine, 6, 3, page (227-237)
Publication Publié, 2014
Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Calcium (Ca2+) is a key signaling ion that plays a fundamental role in many cellular processes in most types of tissues and organisms. The versatility of this signaling pathway is remarkable. Depending on the cell type and the stimulus, intracellular Ca2+ increases can last over different periods, as short spikes or more sustained signals. From a spatial point of view, they can be localized or invade the whole cell. Such a richness of behaviors is possible thanks to numerous exchange processes with the external medium or internal Ca2+ pools, mainly the endoplasmic or sarcoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. These fluxes are also highly regulated. In order to get an accurate description of the spatiotemporal organization of Ca2+ signaling, it is useful to resort to modeling. Thus, each flux can be described by an appropriate kinetic expression. Ca2+ dynamics in a given cell type can then be simulated by a modular approach, consisting of the assembly of computational descriptions of the appropriate fluxes and regulations. Modeling can also be used to get insight into the mechanisms of decoding of the Ca2+ signals responsible for cellular responses. Cells can use frequency or amplitude coding, as well as take profit of Ca2+ oscillations to increase their sensitivity to small average Ca2+ increases. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. |
