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Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Isolation and Kv Channel Recordings in Murine Atrial and Ventricular Cardiomyocytes
Published on: March 12, 2013
Age and gender-dependent alternative splicing of P/Q-type calcium channel EF-hand
1Department of Physiology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 2 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597.
Abstract:
Ca(v)2.1 Ca(2+) channels (P/Q-type), which participate in various key roles in the CNS by mediating calcium influx, are extensively spliced. One of its alternatively-spliced exons is 37, which forms part of the EF hand. The expression of exon 37a (EFa form), but not exon 37b (EFb form), confers the channel an activity-dependent enhancement of channel opening known as Ca(2+)-dependent facilitation (CDF). In this study, we analyzed the trend of EF hand splice variant distributions in mouse, rat and human brain tissues. We observed a developmental switch in rodents, as well as an age and gender bias in human brain tissues, suggestive of a possible role of these EF hand splice variants in neurophysiological specialization. A parallel study performed on rodent brains showed that the data drawn from human and rodent tissues may not necessarily correlate in the process of aging.
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