Calcium cycling and signaling in cardiac myocytes.

Calcium (Ca) is a universal intracellular second messenger. In muscle, Ca is best known for its role in contractile activation. However, in recent years the critical role of Ca in other myocyte processes has become increasingly clear. This review focuses on Ca signaling in cardiac myocytes as pertaining to electrophysiology (including action potentials and arrhythmias), excitation-contraction coupling, modulation of contractile function, energy supply-demand balance (including mitochondrial function), cell death, and transcription regulation. Importantly, although such diverse Ca-dependent regulations occur simultaneously in a cell, the cell can distinguish distinct signals by local Ca or protein complexes and differential Ca signal integration.