Information Processing in Calcium Signal Transduction

Abstract

Calcium signalling often employs calcium oscillations. It is by now a well-known fact that information, e.g. about the amount of stimulus that evoked a calcium response is encoded in the oscillations. Information can be stored in the frequency, amplitude and shape of the oscillations. How this information is decoded by the many enzymes which are regulated by calcium is not thoroughly understood and so far only few experiments and theoretical studies have been made in order to elucidate the responsible mechanisms. We present both experimental and theoretical studies of calcium signal encoding and decoding in non-excitable cells, and try to illuminate the mechanisms by which effective and versatile information processing is made possible.