Time-dependent changes of calcium influx and efflux rates in rabbit skeletal muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum.

Unfractionated and low buoyant density sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles released calcium spontaneously after ATP- or acetyl phosphate-supported calcium uptake when internal Ca2+ was stabilized by the use of 50 mM phosphate as calcium-precipitating anion. This spontaneous calcium release could not be attributed to falling Ca2+ concentration outside the vesicles (Ca02+), substrate depletion, ADP accumulation, nonspecific membrane deterioration of the attainment of a high vesicular calcium content. Instead, spontaneous calcium release was directly proportional to Ca02+ at the time that calcium content was maximal. A causal relationship between high Ca02+ and spontaneous calcium release was suggested by the finding that elevation of Ca02+ from less than 1 microM to 3--5 microM increased the rate and extent of calcium release. The spontaneous calcium release was due both to acceleration of calcium efflux and slowing of calcium influx that was not accompanied by a significant change in the rate of ATP hydrolysis. Neither reversal of the transmembrane KCl gradient nor incubation with cation and proton ionophores abolished the spontaneous calcium release. The persistence of calcium release under conditions where the membrane was permeable to both anions and cations makes it unlikely that this phenomenon is due to a changing transmembrane potential. The similarity between the Ca2+ dependence of spontaneous calcium release and of calcium uptake, along with other similarities between these processes, suggest that calcium release is mediated by the calcium pump in these membranes.