Peter B. Guthrie

Calcium waves represent a widespread form of intercellular communication. Although they have been thought for a long time to require gap junctions, we recently demonstrated that mouse cortical astrocytes use an extracellular messenger for calcium wave propagation. The present experiments identify ATP as a major extracellular messenger in this system. Medium collected from astrocyte cultures during (but not before) calcium wave stimulation contains ATP. The excitatory effects of medium samples and of ATP are blocked by purinergic receptor antagonists and by pretreatment with apyrase; these same purinergic receptor antagonists block propagation of electrically evoked calcium waves. ATP, applied at the concentration measured in medium samples, evokes responses that are qualitatively and quantitatively similar to those evoked by those medium samples. These data implicate ATP as an important transmitter between CNS astrocytes.

Focally evoked calcium waves in astrocyte cultures have been thought to propagate by gap-junction-mediated intercellular passage of chemical signal(s). In contrast to this mechanism we observed isolated astrocytes, which had no physical contact with other astrocytes in the culture, participating in a calcium wave. This observation requires an extracellular route of astrocyte signaling. To directly test for extracellular signaling we made cell-free lanes 10-300 microns wide in confluent cultures by deleting astrocytes with a glass pipette. After 4-8 hr of recovery, regions of confluent astrocytes separated by lanes devoid of cells were easily located. Electrical stimulation was used to initiate calcium waves. Waves crossed narrow (< 120 microns) cell-free lanes in 15 of 36 cases, but failed to cross lanes wider than 120 microns in eight of eight cases. The probability of crossing narrow lanes was not correlated with the distance from the stimulation site, suggesting that cells along the path of the calcium wave release the extracellular messenger(s). Calculated velocity across the acellular lanes was not significantly different from velocity through regions of confluent astrocytes. Focal superfusion altered both the extent and the direction of calcium waves in confluent regions. These data indicate that extracellular signals may play a role in astrocyte-astrocyte communication in situ.