Ca uptake and Ca releasing properties of the endoplasmic reticulum in rat peritoneal mast cells

In order to study the characteristics of the intracellular Ca store of mast cells, organelles of rat peritoneal mast cells were fractionated. The binding of 45Ca was at its peak in the fractions where the highest activity of glucose-6-phosphatase, the marker enzyme for the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), was measured. The ER-rich fraction exhibited an ATP-dependent uptake of 45Ca and this uptake was inhibited by pretreatment with ATPase inhibitors such as LaCl3 or Na3VO4. When inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) was added to a medium containing the 45Ca-loaded ER fraction, it caused a dose-dependent release of 45Ca at concentrations higher than 0.5 microM, while inositol 1-monophosphate and inositol 1,4-bisphosphate were not effective even at higher concentrations. The results of a binding assay using 3H-labeled IP3 indicated that there exist two kinds of IP3 binding site in the ER: one is of high affinity but low capacity while the other is of low affinity and high capacity. IP3-induced 45Ca release was dose-dependently inhibited by pretreatment with c-AMP. The present study supports the assumption that the intracellular Ca store associated with histamine release from the mast cell is the ER.