Molecular cogs of the insect circadian clock.
During the last five years, enormous progress has been made in understanding the molecular basis of circadian systems, mainly by molecular genetic studies using the mouse and fly. Extensive evidence has revealed that the core clock machinery involves "clock genes" and "clock proteins" functioning as molecular cogs. These participate in transcriptional/translational feedback loops and many homologous clock-components in the fruit fly Drosophila are also expressed in mammalian clock tissues with circadian rhythms. Thus, the mechanisms of the central clock seem to be conserved across animal kingdom. However, some recent studies imply that the present widely accepted molecular models of circadian clocks may not always be supported by the experimental evidence.
Shirasu
Naoto
N
Laboratory of Structure-Function Biochemistry, Department of Chemistry, Faculty and Graduate School of Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Shimohigashi
Yasuyuki
Y
Tominaga
Yoshiya
Y
Shimohigashi
Miki
M
D000818:Animals; D001683:Biological Clocks / Q000502:physiology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D056926:CLOCK Proteins; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000502:physiology*; D025461:Feedback, Physiological; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000502:physiology
D015534:Trans-Activators; D056926:CLOCK Proteins; C538944:Clock protein, mouse