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A Calibration-Free Measurement for Monitoring Cellular Calcium Transients Adaptively

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Abstract

\({Ca}^{2+}\) plays an important role as an intracellular second messenger in the growth and development of cardiomyocytes (CMs), which can be visualized by calcium imaging and be quantified as calcium transient. Based on calcium imaging, the widely applied measurement method for cellular calcium transient requires laborious and inefficient calibration experiments, as well as affected by photobleaching. In this study, we presented a calibration-free method, based on calcium imaging, to calculate cellular calcium transient and correct photobleaching directly from the target video. We also set up image acquisition and calculation system on custom software, applied to calcium transients monitoring of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes. Results showed that the effect of the new method was similar to that of the traditional one with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.99 ± 0.01. Moreover, the residual sum of squares of the two methods was only 26.31 ± 26.28 when the area of the region of interest was greater than 8% of the image area. This result indicated that the new method provided a new concept of cellular \({Ca}^{2+}\) concentration quantification as well as a rapid and adaptive method for monitoring cellular calcium transient.

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Availability of Data and Materials

The datasets during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (61571314) and the Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province, China (2018SZ0384, 2020YFG0081).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Biomedical Engineering, Sichuan University, No. 24 South Section 1, First Ring Road, Chengdu, 610065, Sichuan, China

    Lu Gao, Jing Ye, Ling He, Jing Zhang, Han Zhang & Gang Yang

  2. Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, No. 37 Guo Xue Alley, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Zhenghua Xiao

Authors
  1. Lu Gao
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  2. Jing Ye
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  3. Zhenghua Xiao
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  4. Ling He
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  5. Jing Zhang
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  6. Han Zhang
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  7. Gang Yang
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Contributions

LG, JY, and GY participated in the design and coordination of the study and software, performed experiments, analyzed data, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript. ZHX, LH, JZ, and HZ participated in the design and coordination of the study as well as helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Gang Yang.

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Gao, L., Ye, J., Xiao, Z. et al. A Calibration-Free Measurement for Monitoring Cellular Calcium Transients Adaptively. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 194, 2236–2250 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-021-03771-x

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