Fig. 5

Impact of ablation-induced cell death on non-myocytes in cocultures. a Time-series images (green) showing propagation of a solitary, rapid transient wave of Ca²⁺ along the cells after ablation of a central myocyte (red, refer Additional file 2: movie 2). Corresponding grey-scale images show grey values averaged over each of the concentric rings at that time point. Time-point of ablation is set to t = 0 s. Scale bars: 50 µm. b Plot depicting changes in Ca²⁺ fluorescence intensity with time, indicating averaged [Ca²⁺]_i of rings (Ring 1–8) before and after ablation. Inlay shows a zoom-in of the single Ca²⁺ spike moving sequentially through the subsequent rings. c Mean Ca²⁺ propagation speed along the myocytes (dotted) and non-myocytes across the rings (Ring 1–10) after ablation in cocultures, with error bars showing s.e.m., N = 10 for myocytes, N = 8 for non-myocytes. The propagation speeds were significantly higher along the non-myocytes compared to those in myocytes for a distance of 100 µm from the ablated cell (Multiple t-tests, Holm-Šídák method, α = 0.05)