
Fig. 4. Ca2+ puffs in 16HBE14o- and SH-SY5Y cells. (A) High-frequency non-regenerative Ca2+ puffs in a 16HBE14o- cell. The top two traces depict Ca2+ puffs firing at the sites marked by the correspondingly coloured circles in the inset cell image. The ticks beneath the second trace denote the occurrence of a Ca2+ puff at either of the sites. The average frequency of events in this recording was 0.8 Hz. Despite this high frequency, there was only a modest effect on the global Ca2+ concentration (bottom trace). (B) The relatively slow elevation of the intracellular Ca2+ concentration observed in some SH-SY5Y cells. Although the cell shown had two active pacemaker Ca2+ puff sites, a regenerative Ca2+ rise was not observed. Instead, there was a steady shallow Ca2+ increase. The dashed lines in the cell images represent the positions of the nuclei.