bims-ciryme 2020-07-12 papers

Issue of 2020‒07‒12
three papers selected by
Gabriela Da Silva Xavier
University of Birmingham

Elife. 2020 Jul 09. pii: e55388. [Epub ahead of print]9

An adipokine feedback regulating diurnal food intake rhythms in mice.

Anthony H Tsang, Christiane E Koch, Jana-Thabea Kiehn, Cosima X Schmidt, Henrik Oster.

Endogenous circadian clocks have evolved to anticipate 24-hour rhythms in environmental demands. Recent studies suggest that circadian rhythm disruption is a major risk factor for the development of metabolic disorders in humans. Conversely, alterations in energy state can disrupt circadian rhythms of behavior and physiology, creating a vicious circle of metabolic dysfunction. How peripheral energy state affects diurnal food intake, however, is still poorly understood. We here show that the adipokine adiponectin (ADIPOQ) regulates diurnal feeding rhythms through clocks in energy regulatory centers of the mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH). Adipoq-deficient mice show increased rest phase food intake associated with disrupted transcript rhythms of clock and appetite-regulating genes in the MBH. ADIPOQ regulates MBH clocks via AdipoR1-mediated upregulation of the core clock gene Bmal1. BMAL1, in turn, controls expression of orexigenic neuropeptide expression in the MBH. Together, these data reveal a systemic metabolic circuit to regulate central circadian clocks and energy intake.

Keywords: genetics; genomics; mouse; neuroscience

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55388

Nat Commun. 2020 Jul 07. 11(1): 3394

The VIP-VPAC2 neuropeptidergic axis is a cellular pacemaking hub of the suprachiasmatic nucleus circadian circuit.

Andrew P Patton, Mathew D Edwards, Nicola J Smyllie, Ryan Hamnett, Johanna E Chesham, Marco Brancaccio, Elizabeth S Maywood, Michael H Hastings.

The hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) are the principal mammalian circadian timekeeper, co-ordinating organism-wide daily and seasonal rhythms. To achieve this, cell-autonomous circadian timing by the ~20,000 SCN cells is welded into a tight circuit-wide ensemble oscillation. This creates essential, network-level emergent properties of precise, high-amplitude oscillation with tightly defined ensemble period and phase. Although synchronised, regional cell groups exhibit differentially phased activity, creating stereotypical spatiotemporal circadian waves of cellular activation across the circuit. The cellular circuit pacemaking components that generate these critical emergent properties are unknown. Using intersectional genetics and real-time imaging, we show that SCN cells expressing vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) or its cognate receptor, VPAC2, are neurochemically and electrophysiologically distinct, but together they control de novo rhythmicity, setting ensemble period and phase with circuit-level spatiotemporal complexity. The VIP/VPAC2 cellular axis is therefore a neurochemically and topologically specific pacemaker hub that determines the emergent properties of the SCN timekeeper.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17110-x

Front Physiol. 2020 ;11 429

Chemical Perturbation of Chloroplast-Related Processes Affects Circadian Rhythms of Gene Expression in Arabidopsis: Salicylic Acid Application Can Entrain the Clock.

Koumis Philippou, Amanda M Davis, Seth J Davis, Alfredo Sánchez-Villarreal.

The plant circadian system reciprocally interacts with metabolic processes. To investigate entrainment features in metabolic-circadian interactions, we used a chemical approach to perturb metabolism and monitored the pace of nuclear-driven circadian oscillations. We found that chemicals that alter chloroplast-related functions modified the circadian rhythms. Both vitamin C and paraquat altered the circadian period in a light-quality-dependent manner, whereas rifampicin lengthened the circadian period under darkness. Salicylic acid (SA) increased oscillatory robustness and shortened the period. The latter was attenuated by sucrose addition and was also gated, taking place during the first 3 h of the subjective day. Furthermore, the effect of SA on period length was dependent on light quality and genotype. Period lengthening or shortening by these chemicals was correlated to their inferred impact on photosynthetic electron transport activity and the redox state of plastoquinone (PQ). Based on these data and on previous publications on circadian effects that alter the redox state of PQ, we propose that the photosynthetic electron transport and the redox state of PQ participate in circadian periodicity. Moreover, coupling between chloroplast-derived signals and nuclear oscillations, as observed in our chemical and genetic assays, produces traits that are predicted by previous models. SA signaling or a related process forms a rhythmic input loop to drive robust nuclear oscillations in the context predicted by the zeitnehmer model, which was previously developed for Neurospora. We further discuss the possibility that electron transport chains (ETCs) are part of this mechanism.

Keywords: Arabidopsis; circadian clock; entrainment; luciferase imaging; metabolic inputs; redox; salicylic acid; stress signaling

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.00429