Mathematics Commons^™

Macroscopic Consequences Of Calcium Signaling In Microdomains: A First-Passage-Time Approach, Robert Rovetti

Mathematics Faculty Works

Calcium (Ca) plays an important role in regulating various cellular processes. In a variety of cell types, Ca signaling occurs within microdomains where channels deliver localized pulses of Ca activating a nearby collection of Ca-sensitive receptors. The small number of channels involved ensures that the signaling process is stochastic. The aggregate response of several thousand of these microdomains yields a whole-cell response which dictates the cell behavior. Here, we study the statistical properties of a population of these microdomains in response to a trigger signal. We use a first-passage-time approach to show analytically how Ca release in the whole cell …