title: Warming Up Your Tick-Tock: Temperature-Dependent Regulation of Circadian Clocks.
abstract: Circadian clocks are endogenous time-keeping mechanisms to adaptively coordinate animal behaviors and physiology with daily environmental changes. So far many circadian studies in model organisms have identified evolutionarily conserved molecular frames of circadian clock genes in the context of transcription-translation feedback loops. The molecular clockwork drives cell-autonomously cycling gene expression with ~24-hour periodicity, which is fundamental to circadian rhythms. Light and temperature are two of the most potent external time cues to reset the circadian phase of the internal clocks, yet relatively little is known about temperature-relevant clock regulation. In this review, we describe recent findings on temperature-dependent clock mechanisms in homeothermic mammals as compared with poikilothermic Drosophila at molecular, neural, and organismal levels. We propose thermodynamic transitions in RNA secondary structures might have been potent substrates for the molecular evolution of temperature-relevant post-transcriptional mechanisms. Future works should thus validate the potential involvement of specific post-transcriptional steps in temperature-dependent plasticity of circadian clocks.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Yoonhee
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ki
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hwajung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ri
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hoyeon
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Eunseok
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Joonho
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Choe
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea clim@unist.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Chunghun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lim
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D057906:Circadian Clocks / Q000502:physiology*; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D004777:Environment; D015870:Gene Expression / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology; D013696:Temperature
keywords: circadian pacemaker neurons; circadian rhythms; molecular clocks; post-transcription; temperature