Calcium ions (Ca) participate in many signal transduction processes, and for that reason it is important to determine where these ions are located within the living cell, and when and to what extent they change their local concentration. Of the different Ca-specific indicators, the fluorescent dyes, developed by Grynkiewicz et al. (1), have proved most efficacious, however, their use on plants has met with several problems (2). First, the dyes as acetoxy-methyl esters are often cleaved by extracellular esterases in the plant cell wall, and thus they do not enter the cell. Second, if the dye crosses the plasma membrane it may continue into non-cytoplasmic membrane compartments. Third, even if cleaved by esterases in the cytoplasm, or introduced as the free acid into the cytoplasmic compartment, the dyes often become quickly sequestered into vacuoles and organelles, or extruded from the cell. Finally, the free acid form of the dye readily complexes with proteins reducing its ability to detect free calcium. All these problems lead to an erroneous measurement of calcium (2).
