Crosstalk among Calcium ATPases: PMCA, SERCA and SPCA in Mental Diseases

Calcium in mammalian neurons is essential for developmental processes, neurotransmitter release, apoptosis, and signal transduction. Incorrectly processed Ca signal is well-known to trigger a cascade of events leading to altered response to variety of stimuli and persistent accumulation of pathological changes at the molecular level. To counterbalance potentially detrimental consequences of Ca , neurons are equipped with sophisticated mechanisms that function to keep its concentration in a tightly regulated range. Calcium pumps belonging to the P-type family of ATPases: plasma membrane Ca -ATPase (PMCA), sarco/endoplasmic Ca -ATPase (SERCA) and secretory pathway Ca -ATPase (SPCA) are considered efficient line of defense against abnormal Ca rises. However, their role is not limited only to Ca transport, as they present tissue-specific functionality and unique sensitive to the regulation by the main calcium signal decoding protein-calmodulin (CaM). Based on the available literature, in this review we analyze the contribution of these three types of Ca -ATPases to neuropathology, with a special emphasis on mental diseases.