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Probing Spatio-temporal Intracellular Calcium Variations in Plants

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Plant Signal Transduction

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 479))

Abstract

Calcium (Ca2+) ions act as intracellular second messengers in many different signalling processes in plant cells and thus contribute to the amplification step of the signalling pathway and the specificity of the adaptative response. Dynamics of calcium described as spatial and temporal changes of the Ca2+ concentrations either in the cytosol and/or in other compartments of the plant cell are now accepted to generate “calcium signatures”, which might be responsible for the initiation of specific downstream events leading to the mounting of an appropriate response. To identify and elucidate the properties of such signatures, highly sensitive and specific methods have been developed and are used to measure and monitor variations in intracellular Ca2+ concentrations. Two of these methods, namely bio-luminescence and fluorescence in combination with confocal laser scanning microscopy, are presented.

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© 2009 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Mithöfer, A., Mazars, C., Maffei, M. (2009). Probing Spatio-temporal Intracellular Calcium Variations in Plants. In: Pfannschmidt, T. (eds) Plant Signal Transduction. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 479. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-289-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-289-2_5

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-943-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-59745-289-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

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