[Abstract]  [Full Text]  [PDF]

Axel Mithöfer^1* and Christian Mazars²

¹ Department Biologie I der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Botanik. Menzinger Str. 67, D-80638, München. Germany.
² Signaux et Messages Cellulaires chez les Végétaux, UMR CNRS/UPS 5546. 24 Chemin de Borde Rouge, BP 17 Auzeville, F-31326 Castanet-Tolosan. France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: Axel Mithöfer, Department Biologie I der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Botanik. Menzinger Str. 67, D-80638, München. Germany. Email: mithoefer@lmu.de

Biol. Proced. Online 2002;4:105-118. doi:10.1251/bpo40
Submitted: September 21, 2002; Accepted: November 21, 2002; Published: December 09, 2002.

Indexing terms: Cell culture; Calcium; Cytosol.

Due to the involvement of calcium as a main second messenger in the plant signaling pathway, increasing interest has been focused on the calcium signatures supposed to be involved in the patterning of the specific response associated to a given stimulus. In order to follow these signatures we described here the practical approach to use the non-invasive method based on the aequorin technology. Besides reviewing the advantages and disadvantages of this method we report on results showing the usefulness of aequorin to study the calcium response to biotic (elicitors) and abiotic stimuli (osmotic shocks) in various compartments of plant cells such as cytosol and nucleus.