E. Neher, R.S. Zucker, "Multiple calcium-dependent processes related to secretion in bovine chromaffin cells," Neuron, 10:21-3, 1993. (Cited in 56 publications through December 1994) Comments by Robert S. Zucker
The significance of this work, observes Robert Zucker, a professor in the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, lies as much in demonstrating the power of certain sophisticated new biophysical techniques as in yielding new information on the role of calcium in the cell-secretion process. The majority of the work was done at Erwin Neher's laboratory in the department of membrane biophysics at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in GOttingen, Germany.
The researchers combined a variation of the 'patch clamp' method--used to measure capacitance changes in membranes of single cells--with a mechanism to change and control calcium concentration. By this method they were able to directly examine how chromaffin cells secreted adrenalin in...