Composition of sea urchin egg homogenate determines its potency to inositol trisphosphate and cyclic ADPRibose-induced Ca2+ release
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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Imaging Calcium in Drosophila at Egg Activation
Published on: August 6, 2016
1Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences, The Medical School, Framlington Place, University of Newcastle, Newcastle NE2 4HH, UK. k.t.jones@ncl.ac.uk
Abstract:
Of the three intracellular Ca2+ signalling molecules (InsP3, cADPR and NAADP) sea urchin egg homogenate has been used in the identification and characterisation of two, cADPR and NAADP. Homogenate is prepared in a Na+/Cl- substitute of N-Methyl glucamine (NMG)/gluconate. To determine how media composition affects Ca2+ release we replaced NMG with various sugars or glycine and found a dramatic improvement in InsP3 mediated Ca2+ release. Conversely the response to cADPR was diminished, whilst NAADP was unaffected. Therefore modifying media composition may be an important consideration in using homogenate to study Ca2+ release for future studies.
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