Cited by 2,900Circadian rhythm and melatoninPlant Molecular Biology ResearchLight effects on plants

Molecular Bases for Circadian Clocks

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Dunlap, Jay C·1999·Cell

Abstract

Life is a cyclical chemical process that is regulated in four dimensions. We distinguish parts of the cycle: development describes the changes from single cell to adult, and aging the changes from adult to death. Birth to death, a cycle, and there are cycles within cycles—circannual rhythms, menstrual cycles, semilunar cycles, and daily 24 hr or circadian cycles. Twice a year we get a reminder of the importance of our internal circadian biological clocks. Daylight savings: in October we fall back just an hour, and yet we wake up an hour early on Monday anyway and think meals are late—but only for a day, until our clocks are reset. The reminder is about the way we process environmental information and time, namely that we use external time cues (light and temperature changes that track the day without) to set an internal clock that guides the day within. This internal clock is the lens through which we survey acute external factors; it takes the lead in determining what we perceive as time. It used to be that research in chronobiology moved along at a gentlemanly pace. It was a field in that it shared a common set of problems, a common vocabulary, and a series of common assumptions: only eukaryotes had real clocks and they probably evolved just once, since the basic properties of the rhythms were generally the same. Any cell in fungi, plants, or protists could be a clock cell, but only neurons kept time in organisms that had them. Input to the clock was readily separable from how the clock itself worked. But within the past few years progress in understanding how clocks work in this assemblage of organisms has been increasing exponentially, coming to a crescendo during the final half of 1998 in an eruption of data that has largely disproven the assumptions and permanently changed the face of the field. The dust is still settling, but what we now see, albeit in broad outline, is probably the outline of how a large part of biological timing works at the molecular level. It's been quite a ride. How'd we get this far? One ought naturally to be able to consult reviews, but there have been so many concerning the molecular analysis of rhythms that clearly what is needed here is a review of the survey of the reviews. This brings to mind a short story by H. L. Mencken in which peace of mind was brought to the literary populace in the early 1900s only through the synthesis and condensation of all of the pertinent literary critiques each week into reviews of reviews and ultimately into a grand review word (the first week being something like MIFLHMP) that readers could read, be satisfied that they were up to date, and enjoy their evenings being at home, content (90Mencken, H.L. (1919). The criticism of criticism of criticism. In Prejudices—First Series, H.L. Mencken, ed. (New York: Knopf), pp. 308–316.Google Scholar). For such a telegraphically quick review of the molecular basis of the currently understood transcription/translation feedback loop (we'll get to this) circadian oscillators, the review word for the late 80s and early 90s would have been PERFRQT, reflecting the Drosophila period gene and the Neurospora frequency gene (the fruits of the first decades of genetic and molecular genetic analysis of clocks) and the fact that the Drosophila timeless gene, tim, was still in the process of arriving. This era was spent convincing ourselves that such genes really were the key to understanding how clocks work. Flies and fungi were PERFRQT systems for working out basic tools, paradigms, and approaches—gene products whose expression levels themselves oscillate, the importance of negative feedback, criteria to begin to distinguish which oscillatory gene products might contribute to the action of an internal timer as distinct from being output (reviewed in 32Dunlap J.C Genetic and molecular analysis of circadian rhythms.Annu. Rev. Genetics. 1996; 30: 579-601Crossref PubMed Scopus (167) Google Scholar), and a universal appreciation of the importance of genetics. If overall this left us with a less than PERFRQT understanding of timing in general, at least many found optimism in the sense that we were, finally, asking the right questions. This naturally segued into an interlude where light resetting was explained by two different mechanisms, through transcriptional induction of oscillator components in Neurospora (26Crosthwaite S.C Loros J.J Dunlap J.C Light-Induced resetting of a circadian clock is mediated by a rapid increase in frequency transcript.Cell. 1995; 81: 1003-1012Abstract Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (242) Google Scholar) or protein turnover in Drosophila (reviewed in 166Young M The molecular control of circadian behavioral rhythms and their entrainment in Drosophila.Annu. Rev. Biochem. 1998; 67: 135-152Crossref PubMed Scopus (137) Google Scholar). But by mid 1997 the word was PASWCCLK (the first clock components with known biochemical functions [transcriptional activators], the first mammalian clock gene, and th

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Authors
Dunlap, J. C.
Affiliations
Dartmouth College (US)
Corresponding author
Dunlap, Jay C
Venue
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
1999-01
Volume
96
Issue
2
Pages
271-290
ISSN
0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1979385177
Cited by
2,900
References
166
Citations by year
2026: 56 · 2025: 82 · 2024: 70 · 2023: 76 · 2022: 98 · 2021: 97 · 2020: 89 · 2019: 81 · 2018: 91 · 2017: 102 · 2016: 71 · 2015: 89 · 2014: 96 · 2013: 66 · 2012: 83
FWCI
19.62
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cell (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (1k05mh001186-01)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (MH01186, MH 44651, R01MH044651)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM34985)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Circadian rhythm and melatonin
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant Molecular Biology Research
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Light effects on plants
Keywords
circadian clock, clock genes, circadian rhythm, chronobiology
MeSH terms
Cyanobacteria, Animals, Biological Clocks, Circadian Rhythm, Drosophila, Feedback, Humans, Intracellular Fluid, Neurospora, Phylogeny, Plants, Evolution, Molecular

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