The Drosophila circadian clock keeps time via transcriptional feedback loops. These feedback loops are initiated by CLOCK-CYCLE (CLK-CYC) heterodimers, which activate transcription of genes encoding the feedback repressors PERIOD and TIMELESS. Circadian clocks normally operate in ∼150 brain pacemaker neurons and in many peripheral tissues in the head and body, but can also be induced by expressing CLK in nonclock cells. These ectopic clocks also require cyc, yet CYC expression is restricted to canonical clock cells despite evidence that cyc mRNA is widely expressed. Here we show that CLK binds to and stabilizes CYC in cell culture and in nonclock cells in vivo. Ectopic clocks also require the blue light photoreceptor CRYPTOCHROME (CRY), which is required for both light entrainment and clock function in peripheral tissues. These experiments define the genetic architecture required to initiate circadian clock function in Drosophila, reveal mechanisms governing circadian activator stability that are conserved in perhaps all eukaryotes, and suggest that Clk, cyc, and cry expression is sufficient to drive clock expression in naive cells.
Pubmed ID: 28973907 RIS Download
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Collects, maintains and distributes Drosophila melanogaster strains for research. Emphasis is placed on genetic tools that are useful to a broad range of investigations. These include basic stocks of flies used in genetic analysis such as marker, balancer, mapping, and transposon-tagging strains; mutant alleles of identified genes, including a large set of transposable element insertion alleles; defined sets of deficiencies and a variety of other chromosomal aberrations; engineered lines for somatic and germline clonal analysis; GAL4 and UAS lines for targeted gene expression; enhancer trap and lacZ-reporter strains with defined expression patterns for marking tissues; and a collection of transposon-induced lethal mutations.
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