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Fig. 1. Transient nuclear-cytoplasmic Ca2+ gradients in pancreatic acinar cells [modified figure reproduced with permission from Springer-Verlag (Gerasimenko et al., 1996b )]. (A) A typical localized Ca2+ spike induced by the short application of acetylcholine (ACh) in the secretory granule area does not enter the nucleus or basal area of a doublet of pancreatic acinar cells: the first image is the transmitted light picture, the second image is the same cluster, stained with the nuclear dye Hoechst 33342. Yellow boxes, secretory granule areas; blue boxes, nuclei; purple boxes, basal areas. Colour images show confocal recording of propagation of Ca2+ spike in time (two images per second) from left to right. Cells were stained with Fura Red in AM form. Bar, 5 µs. (B) Traces of Ca2+ concentration changes: upper traces are for secretory granule area (yellow boxes in A), middle traces are from the nuclei (blue boxes in A), lower traces are from the basal areas (purple boxes in A). (C) A long application of ACh induces global responses in the same cluster. The Ca2+ concentration in the nucleus only temporarily differs from that in the cytoplasm. Bar, 5 µm. (D) The temporary Ca2+ gradient along the line between nucleus and cytoplasm during a local Ca2+ spike can be quite high: 400 nM/µm. (I) Transmitted light picture of the cell. Dark areas correspond to secretory granules. [Ca2+] was measured along the diagonal line. Bar, 5 µm. (II) Position of the nucleus was verified by staining with Hoechst 33342. (III) The graph corresponds to changes of [Ca2+] along the line shown in I; 1 at rest, 2 at the peak of the local Ca2+ response. N indicates the position of the nucleus.
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