Aequorin-based genetic approaches to visualize Ca2 + signaling in developing animal systems

BackgroundIn recent years, as our understanding of the various roles played by Ca2 + signaling in development and differentiation has expanded, the challenge of imaging Ca2 + dynamics within living cells, tissues, and whole animal systems has been extended to include specific signaling activity in organelles and non-membrane bound sub-cellular domains.Scope of reviewIn this review we outline how recent advances in genetics and molecular biology have contributed to improving and developing current bioluminescence-based Ca2 + imaging techniques. Reporters can now be targeted to specific cell types, or indeed organelles or domains within a particular cell.Major conclusionsThese advances have contributed to our current understanding of the specificity and heterogeneity of developmental Ca2 + signaling. The improvement in the spatial resolution that results from specifically targeting a Ca2 + reporter has helped to reveal how a ubiquitous signaling messenger like Ca2 + can regulate coincidental but different signaling events within an individual cell; a Ca2 + signaling paradox that until now has been hard to explain.General significanceTechniques used to target specific reporters via genetic means will have applications beyond those of the Ca2 + signaling field, and these will, therefore, make a significant contribution in extending our understanding of the signaling networks that regulate animal development. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Biochemical, biophysical and genetic approaches to intracellular calcium signalling.

► Advances in genetics have resulted in improved bioluminescent Ca2 +-imaging methods. ► The genetic expression of apoaequorin in different intact animal models is described. ► The strategies used to load the apoaequorin cofactor, coelenterazine, are outlined. ► We describe the detection and imaging systems used to provide Ca2 + signaling data.