Fluorimetric approaches to the study of calcium transients in living cells

This paper is a short review of the fluorimetric methods used to measure intracellular free Ca++ concentration in living cells. The availability of fluorescent probes has greatly contributed to the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the cellular homeostasis of this second messenger. Data can be collected from populations of cells by spectrofluorimetry or from small groups or single cells by spectromicroscopy. Finally the fluorescent images can be captured by a high sensitivity camera, digitally processed and convert in Ca++ images of the cell. The technique allows recognition of differences in [Ca++]i transients among adjacent cells in a same field or in different regions of a cell and greatly contributes to the identification of the cellular mechanisms modulating [Ca++]i.