Extracellular Calcium Levels Strongly Influence Neural Crest Cell Galvanotaxis

¹ Zoology Department, University of California, Davis, California 95616

We have been studying the response of neural crest cells from 56-h-old quail embryos to small, imposed d.c. electrical fields. These cells exhibit directed translocation or galvanotaxis towards the negative pole of fields as low as 7 mV/mm. With an average cell length of 60 µm, these cells respond to fields as low as 0.4 mV along their length. A significant change in the average cosine of the cellular translocation distribution can be detected as early as 7 min after field application for all field strengths greater than 10 mV/mm. Extracellular Ca²⁺ is not required for the motility of these cells as long as extracellular Mg²⁺ is increased to 10 mM. However, the galvanotaxis response does appear to require Ca²⁺ influx since it is completely blocked by the addition of either 10 mM Mg²⁺ or 100 µM Gd³⁺. Moreover, the galvanotaxis response is partially reversed by the complete removal of extracellular Ca²⁺.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				L. J. Shanley, P. Walczysko, M. Bain, D. J. MacEwan, and M. Zhao Influx of extracellular Ca2+ is necessary for electrotaxis in Dictyostelium J. Cell Sci., November 15, 2006; 119(22): 4741 - 4748. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. B. A. Djamgoz, M. Mycielska, Z. Madeja, S. P. Fraser, and W. Korohoda Directional movement of rat prostate cancer cells in direct-current electric field: involvement of voltagegated Na+ channel activity J. Cell Sci., March 9, 2002; 114(14): 2697 - 2705. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. Nishimura, R. Isseroff, and R Nuccitelli Human keratinocytes migrate to the negative pole in direct current electric fields comparable to those measured in mammalian wounds J. Cell Sci., January 1, 1996; 109(1): 199 - 207. [Abstract] [PDF]