Agonist-sensitive calcium pool in the pancreatic acinar cell. II. Characterization of reloading.

45Ca2+ fluxes and free cytosolic Ca2+ measurements in guinea pig pancreatic acini indicated that after agonist stimulation and the release of Ca2+ from the agonist-sensitive pool at least part of the Ca2+ is extruded from the cell, resulting in 45Ca2+ efflux. In the continued presence of agonist, the pool remains permeable to Ca2+ but partially refills with Ca2+. This reloading is dependent on the concentration of extracellular Ca2+. In the absence of extracellular Ca2+, the pool is completely depleted of Ca2+. However, with increasing concentrations of CaCl2 in the incubation solution (from 0.5 to 2.0 mM) there is increasing repletion of the pool with Ca2+ during agonist stimulation. With termination of agonist stimulation, the Ca2+ permeability of the agonist-sensitive pool is rapidly reduced to that measured in the unstimulated cell. As a result, the Ca2+ incorporated into the pool during the stimulation period is rapidly trapped within the pool and exchanges poorly with medium Ca2+. Subsequently, the pool completely refills with Ca2+. The rate of Ca2+ reloading at the termination of agonist stimulation is slower than the conversion of the pool to the impermeable state. In incubation media containing 1.3 mM CaCl2, the half-time for reloading at the termination of stimulation is 5 min. These observations demonstrate the characteristics of Ca2+ reloading of the agonist-sensitive pool both during stimulation and at the termination of stimulation.