1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
  2. Cell Biology

Calmodulin-controlled spatial decoding of oscillatory Ca2+ signals by calcineurin

  1. Sohum Mehta
  2. Nwe-Nwe Aye-Han
  3. Ambhi Ganesan
  4. Laurel Oldach
  5. Kirill Gorshkov
  6. Jin Zhang  Is a corresponding author
  1. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States
  2. The Johns Hopkins University, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03765
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  1. Sohum Mehta
  2. Nwe-Nwe Aye-Han
  3. Ambhi Ganesan
  4. Laurel Oldach
  5. Kirill Gorshkov
  6. Jin Zhang
(2014)
Calmodulin-controlled spatial decoding of oscillatory Ca2+ signals by calcineurin
eLife 3:e03765.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03765
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Abstract

Calcineurin is responsible for mediating a wide variety of cellular processes in response to dynamic calcium (Ca2+) signals, yet the precise mechanisms involved in the spatiotemporal control of calcineurin signaling are poorly understood. Here, we use genetically encoded fluorescent biosensors to directly probe the role of cytosolic Ca2+ oscillations in modulating calcineurin activity dynamics in insulin-secreting MIN6 β-cells. We show that Ca2+ oscillations induce distinct temporal patterns of calcineurin activity in the cytosol and plasma membrane versus at the ER and mitochondria in these cells. Furthermore, we found that these differential calcineurin activity patterns are determined by variations in the subcellular distribution of calmodulin (CaM), indicating that CaM plays an active role in shaping both the spatial and temporal aspects of calcineurin signaling. Together, our findings provide new insights into the mechanisms by which oscillatory signals are decoded to generate specific functional outputs within different cellular compartments.

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Author details

  1. Sohum Mehta

    The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Nwe-Nwe Aye-Han

    The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Ambhi Ganesan

    The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Laurel Oldach

    The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Kirill Gorshkov

    The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Jin Zhang

    The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    For correspondence
    jzhang32@jhmi.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Copyright

© 2014, Mehta et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Sohum Mehta
  2. Nwe-Nwe Aye-Han
  3. Ambhi Ganesan
  4. Laurel Oldach
  5. Kirill Gorshkov
  6. Jin Zhang
(2014)
Calmodulin-controlled spatial decoding of oscillatory Ca2+ signals by calcineurin
eLife 3:e03765.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03765

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03765

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