Ca2+ is among the most important intracellular second messengers participating in a plethora of biological processes, and the measurement of Ca2+ fluctuations is significant in the phenomenology of the underlying processes. Aequorin-based Ca2+ probes represent an invaluable tool for reliable measurement of Ca2+ concentrations and dynamics in different subcellular compartments. However, their use is limited due to the lack on the market of ready-to-use, cost-effective, and portable devices for the detection and readout of the low-intensity bioluminescence signal produced by these probes. Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are rapidly evolving solid-state sensors for low light detection, with single photon sensitivity and photon number resolving capability, featuring low cost, low voltage, and compact format. Thus, they may represent the sensors of choice for the development of such devices and, more in general, of a new generation of multipurpose bioluminescence detectors suitable for cell biology studies. Ideally, a detector customized for these purposes must combine high dynamic range with high fidelity in reconstructing the light intensity signal temporal profile. In this article, the ability to perform aequorin-based intracellular Ca2+ measurements using a multipurpose, low-cost setup exploiting SiPMs as the sensors is demonstrated. SiPMs turn out to assure performances comparable to those exhibited by a custom-designed photomultiplier tube-based aequorinometer. Moreover, the flexibility of SiPM-based devices might pave the way toward routinely and wide scale application of innovative biophysical protocols.
Keywords: aequorin; bioluminescence; calcium signaling; live cell; silicon photomultipliers.