P. Pizzo et al., Role of capacitative calcium entry on glutamate-induced calcium influx in type-I rat cortical astrocytes, J NEUROCHEM, 79(1), 2001, pp. 98-109
Capacitative calcium entry (CCE) has been described in a variety of cell ty
pes. To date, little is known about its role in the CNS, and in particular
in the cross-talk between glia and neurons. We have first analyzed the prop
erties of CCE of astrocytes in culture, in comparison with that of the rat
basophilic leukemia cell line (RBL-2H3), a model where calcium release-acti
vated Ca2+ (CRAC) channels have been unambiguously correlated with CCE. We
here show that (i) in astrocytes CCE activated by store depletion and Ca2influx induced by glutamate share the same pharmacological profile of CCE i
n RBL-2H3 cells and (ii) glutamate-induced Ca2+ influx in astrocytes plays
a primary role in glutamate-dependent intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca
2+](i)) oscillations, being these latter reduced in frequency and amplitude
by micromolar concentrations of La3+. Finally, we compared the expression
of various mammalian transient receptor potential genes (TRP) in astrocytes
and RBL-2H3 cells. Despite the similar pharmacological properties of CCE i
n these cells, the pattern of TRP expression is very different. The involve
ment of CCE and TRPs in glutamate dependent activation of astrocytes is dis
cussed.