Fig. 3

Laser-induced cardiomyocyte death resulted in a temporal intracellular calcium-increase in surrounding cardiomyocytes. a Time-series images showing calcium waves in fluorescently labelled contracting myocytes (green) representing contracted and relaxed states, before and after ablation, with the ablated cell (red) in the central ring. Time-point of ablation is set to t = 0 s, refer SAdditional file 1: movie 1. Corresponding grey-scale images show average grey values over each of the concentric rings (Ring 1–6) for that time point. The dashed ring at time point 50 s and 100 s indicates the decreasing affected area for high [Ca²⁺]_i with time. Scale bars: 50 µm. b Changes in Ca²⁺ fluorescence intensity (i.e. the slowly varying component of fluorescence signals averaged over each ring) with time, indicating [Ca²⁺]_i of cells before and after ablation. Inlay indicates original Ca²⁺ fluorescence intensity values plotted against time with the same scale for both axes as in the main plot. c Mean radial Ca²⁺ propagation speed after ablation (see section Methods) across distance of up to 100 µm (Ring 1–5) from the ablated cell (R0), with error bars showing s.e.m., N = 10. d Mean time of recovery of contractility in cells (50% of amplitude before ablation, see section Methods) after ablation, across a distance of 200 µm (Ring 1–10) from the ablated cell, with error bars showing s.e.m., N = 10