Coherent calcium puff signals driven by intracellular noises

Abstract

In many cell types, intracellular calcium is released from internal stores through calcium release channels which are distributed in clusters with a few tens of channels. Localized calcium release events, i.e. Ca2 + puffs, are subjected to stochastic channel dynamics and fluctuations of environmental calcium. Driven by the internal channel noise or external calcium noise, the localized calcium puffs show a coherence resonance phenomenon at weak stimulus. Our study indicates that coherent calcium puffs with an enhanced periodicity can be achieved with external calcium noise more easily than with internal channel noise.