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The Department of Biomedicine

BBB Seminar: Michael J. Berridge

Calcium signalling in health and disease

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Michael J. Berridge
Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK

Cells have an extensive Ca2+ signalling toolkit from which each specific cell type selects out and expresses a unique set of components to create Ca2+ signalling systems with widely different spatial and temporal properties. An important component of many of these signalling systems is the release of Ca2+ by inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP3), which has a central role in many signalling systems in both excitable and non-excitable cells. On-going transcriptional processes maintain the integrity and stability of such cell-specific signalling systems. However, these homeostatic systems are highly plastic and can undergo a process of phenotypic remodelling resulting in pathological Ca2+ signals being set either too high or too low. Such subtle dysregulation of Ca2+ signals has been linked to some of the major diseases in man including cardiac hypertrophy and the neurodegenerative diseases such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and Alzheimer’s disease.

Hosts: Maria Nordheim Alme and Clive Bramham, Department of Biomedicine