The gas NO is a ubiquitous intercellular messenger that modulates a wide range of physiological and pathophysiological functions. But few studies were made to study the role of NO in the Ca²⁺ release in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons by confocal microscopy. Thus the objective of this study was to assess if NO has a role in Ca²⁺ signaling in DRG neurons using confocal microscopy combined with special fluorescence probe Fluo-3/AM. A 100 μM concentration of the NO donors (Sodium Nitroprusside, Dihydrate, SNP) and NO synthase inhibitor (NG-Monomethyl-L-arginine, Monoacetate salt, L-NMMA) was used in the study. Results showed that the fluorescence intensity increased rapidly after injecting SNP, which indicated that SNP could enhance intracellular Ca²⁺ release. And the fluorescence intensity shrank gradually with time and kept at a low level for quite a long period after loading with L-NMMA which indicated that L-NMMA could block intracellular Ca²⁺ release. All these results demonstrated that NO was involved in the regulation of intracellular Ca²⁺ release in the DRG neurons.

Date Published: 17 September 2014
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 9230, Twelfth International Conference on Photonics and Imaging in Biology and Medicine (PIBM 2014), 92301F (17 September 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2068890

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9230:
Twelfth International Conference on Photonics and Imaging in Biology and Medicine (PIBM 2014)
Qingming Luo; Lihong V. Wang; Valery V. Tuchin, Editor(s)