Calcium release rate in skinned skeletal muscle fibers measured with arsenazo III.

Calcium ion release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum of single skinned (sarcolemma removed) skeletal muscle fibers was studied using the calcium-sensitive dye arsenazo III (Arz III). Isotropic absorption measurements were made differentially to reduce the effect of movement artifacts. The question of dye stoichiometry was addressed by measuring the absorption ratio at 600 and 660 nm at various times during the calcium transient. The results indicate that little change in the proportions of the various calcium-dye species occurs until at least 1 s into the release and, further, that the 1:2 calcium-dye complex is unlikely to be the dominant species present at early times. The relationship between dye concentration and the slope of the early absorption change was found to be linear for all levels of fiber loading. This suggests that the 1:1 rather than the 2:2 complex is the major species formed at early times in skinned fibers, although this conclusion is at odds with in vitro studies of Arz III in solution. Beer's law was used to convert the slope of the absorption transient measured over the first 125 ms of a release to the rate of change of the calcium-dye complex. The average rate at which the calcium-dye complex was formed was found to be 0.6 microM/ms. Two models are considered that allow calculation of a correction factor that is used to convert this value to the rate of calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The magnitude of these correction factors was a function of the dye and intrinsic buffer concentrations as well as the stoichiometry of the calcium-dye reaction. After application of the correction factors, the average release rate in our fibers was calculated to range from 0.8 to 13.5 microM/ms.