Circadian clocks - from genes to complex behaviour

Till Roenneberg, Martha Merrow

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademic

    12 Citations (Scopus)
    249 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Circadian clocks control temporal structure in practically all organisms and on all levels of biology, from gene expression to complex behaviour and cognition. Over the last decades, research has begun to unravel the physiological and, more recently, molecular mechanisms that underlie this endogenous temporal programme. The generation of circadian rhythms can be explained, at the molecular level, by a model based upon a set of genes and their products which form an autoregulating negative feedback loop. The elements contributing to this transcriptional feedback appear to be conserved from insects to mammals. Here, we summarize the process of the genetic and molecular research that led to ’closing the molecular loop’. Now that the reductionist approach has led to the description of a detailed clock model at the molecular level, further insights into the circadian system can be provided by combining the extensive knowledge gained from decades of physiological research with molecular tools, thereby reconstructing the clock within the organism and its environment. We describe experiments combining old and new tools and show that they constitute a powerful approach to understanding the mechanisms that lead to temporal structure in complex behaviour.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)277-294
    Number of pages18
    JournalReproduction, Nutrition, Development
    Volume39
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1999

    Keywords

    • autoregulating negative feedback
    • clock gene
    • entrainment
    • transcription
    • circadian rhythm

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