Study of calcium signaling in non-excitable cells

The fundamental importance of calcium signaling in the control of cellular physiology is widely recognized. A dramatic illustration of this is the fac t, that a Medline search for review articles containing the word "calcium" in the title reveals 4,629 hits, whereas the whole body of calcium signalin g literature (approximately 2 x 10(6) pages) is more than enough to fill a decent-sized library. Most of this literature deals with calcium signaling in excitable cells types (mainly neurons and muscle cells), but non-excitab le cell types are capable of calcium signaling as well. Although calcium fl uxes in the latter cell types have attracted much less interest, the litera ture involved is still vast. Nevertheless, in this review article we hope t o contribute some valuable insights to the field. First we shall discuss th e experimental techniques available to the researcher interested in calcium signaling in non-excitable cell types with special attention to patch clam p electrophysiology. Subsequently, we shah review some of the results obtai ned with these techniques by focussing on the calcium-regulating mechanisms in non-excitable cells and discussing the importance of these mechanisms f ar physiology. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.