Origins of the concept of store-operated calcium entry.

The concept of capacitative or store-operated calcium entry, a process by which the release of stored calcium signals the opening of plasma membrane calcium channels, has its roots in the late 1970's, and was formalized in 1986. This short introduction to the current volume of Frontiers in Bioscience briefly summarizes the early experimental work that led to the idea of store-operated calcium entry, and provided the initial proofs for it.