Aluminium perturbs oscillatory phosphoinositide-mediated calcium signalling in hormone-stimulated hepatocytes

Aluminium is known to be toxic to cells from bone, brain and bone marrow but the molecular target(s) affected by Al3+ are not known. We show here that Al3+ disrupts the oscillatory free Ca2+ responses of hepatocytes exposed to the Ca2(+)-mobilizing agonist phenylephrine. Al3+ initially increases the frequency of the oscillations and later induces broad Ca2+ spikes lasting several minutes. These broad spikes persist after removal of both agonist and Al3+ from the medium. In the absence of agonist, Al3+ has no effect on free Ca2+. The data suggest that some component(s) of the receptor-phosphoinositide-Ca2+ signalling pathway might be the site at which Al3+ exerts toxic effects.