Mitochondria as an important factor in the maintenance of constant amplitudes of cytosolic calcium oscillations.

Theoretical models of intracellular calcium oscillations have hitherto focused on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) as an internal calcium store. These models reproduced the large variability in oscillation frequency observed experimentally. In the present contribution, we extend our earlier model [Marhl et al., Biophys. Chem., 63 (1997) 221] by including, in addition to the ER, mitochondria as calcium stores. Simple plausible rate laws are used for the calcium uptake into, and release from, the mitochondria. It is demonstrated with the help of this extended model that mitochondria are likely to act in favour of frequency encoding by enabling the maintenance of fairly constant amplitudes over wide ranges of frequency.