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Circadian rhythmicity and light sensitivity of the zebrafish brain.

ABSTRACT: Traditionally, circadian clocks have been thought of as a neurobiological phenomenon. This view changed somewhat over recent years with the discovery of peripheral tissue circadian oscillators. In mammals, however, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus still retains the critical role of a central synchronizer of biological timing. Zebrafish, in contrast, have always reflected a more highly decentralized level of clock organization, as individual cells and tissues contain directly light responsive circadian pacemakers. As a consequence, clock function in the zebrafish brain has remained largely unexplored, and the precise organization of rhythmic and light-sensitive neurons within the brain is unknown. To address this issue, we used the period3 (per3)-luciferase transgenic zebrafish to confirm that multiple brain regions contain endogenous circadian oscillators that are directly light responsive. In addition, in situ hybridization revealed localised neural expression of several rhythmic and light responsive clock genes, including per3, cryptochrome1a (cry1a) and per2. Adult brain nuclei showing significant clock gene expression include the teleost equivalent of the SCN, as well as numerous hypothalamic nuclei, the periventricular grey zone (PGZ) of the optic tectum, and granular cells of the rhombencephalon. To further investigate the light sensitive properties of neurons, expression of c-fos, a marker for neuronal activity, was examined. c-fos mRNA was upregulated in response to changing light conditions in different nuclei within the zebrafish brain. Furthermore, under constant dark (DD) conditions, c-fos shows a significant circadian oscillation. Taken together, these results show that there are numerous areas of the zebrafish central nervous system, which contain deep brain photoreceptors and directly light-entrainable circadian pacemakers. However, there are also multiple brain nuclei, which possess neither, demonstrating a degree of pacemaker complexity that was not previously appreciated.

SUBMITTER: Moore HA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3899219 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Circadian rhythmicity and light sensitivity of the zebrafish brain.

Moore Helen A HA Whitmore David D

PloS one 20140122 1

Traditionally, circadian clocks have been thought of as a neurobiological phenomenon. This view changed somewhat over recent years with the discovery of peripheral tissue circadian oscillators. In mammals, however, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus still retains the critical role of a central synchronizer of biological timing. Zebrafish, in contrast, have always reflected a more highly decentralized level of clock organization, as individual cells and tissues contain directly ...[more]

PMID: 24465943

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Project description:Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to play crucial roles in various life processes, including circadian rhythms. Although next generation sequencing technologies have facilitated faster profiling of lncRNAs, the resulting datasets require sophisticated computational analyses. In particular, the regulatory roles of lncRNAs in circadian clocks are far from being completely understood. In this study, we conducted RNA-seq-based transcriptome analysis of zebrafish larvae under both constant darkness (DD) and constant light (LL) conditions in a circadian manner, employing state-of-the-art computational approaches to identify approximately 3220 lncRNAs from zebrafish larvae, and then uncovered 269 and 309 lncRNAs displaying circadian rhythmicity under DD and LL conditions, respectively, with 30 of them are coexpressed under both DD and LL conditions. Subsequently, GO, COG, and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses of all these circadianly expressed lncRNAs suggested their potential involvement in numerous biological processes. Comparison of these circadianly expressed zebrafish larval lncRNAs, with rhythmically expressed lncRNAs in the zebrafish pineal gland and zebrafish testis, revealed that nine (DD) and twelve (LL) larval lncRNAs are coexpressed in the zebrafish pineal gland and testis, respectively. Intriguingly, among peptides encoded by these coexpressing circadianly expressed lncRNAs, three peptides (DD) and one peptide (LL) were found to have the known domains from the Protein Data Bank. Further, the conservation analysis of these circadianly expressed zebrafish larval lncRNAs with human and mouse genomes uncovered one lncRNA and four lncRNAs shared by all three species under DD and LL conditions, respectively. We also investigated the conserved lncRNA-encoded peptides and found one peptide under DD condition conserved in these three species and computationally predicted its 3D structure and functions. Our study reveals that hundreds of lncRNAs from zebrafish larvae exhibit circadian rhythmicity and should help set the stage for their further functional studies.

Project description:In mammals, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is the central pacemaker organizing circadian rhythms of behavior and physiology. At the cellular level, the mammalian clock consists of autoregulatory feedback loops involving a set of "clock genes," including the Cryptochrome (Cry) genes, Cry1 and Cry2. Experimental evidence suggests that Cry1 and Cry2 play distinct roles in circadian clock function. In mice, Cry1 is required for sustained circadian rhythms in dissociated SCN neurons or fibroblasts but not in organotypic SCN slices or at the behavioral level, whereas Cry2 is not required at any of these levels. It has been argued that coupling among SCN cellular oscillators compensates for clock gene defects to preserve oscillatory function. Here we test this hypothesis in Cry1(-/-) mice by first disrupting intercellular coupling in vivo using constant light (resulting in behavioral arrhythmicity) and then examining circadian clock gene expression in SCN slices at the single cell level. In this manner, we were able to test the role of intercellular coupling without drugs and while preserving tissue organization, avoiding the confounding influences of more invasive manipulations. Cry1(-/-) mice (as well as control Cry2(-/-) mice) bearing the PER2::LUC knock-in reporter were transferred from a standard light:dark cycle to constant bright light (~650 lux) to induce arrhythmic locomotor patterns. In SCN slices from these animals, we used bioluminescence imaging to monitor PER2::LUC expression in single cells. We show that SCN slices from rhythmic Cry1(-/-) and Cry2(-/-) mice had similarly high percentages of functional single-cell oscillators. In contrast, SCN slices from arrhythmic Cry1(-/-) mice had significantly fewer rhythmic cells than SCN slices from arrhythmic Cry2(-/-) mice. Thus, constant light in vivo disrupted intercellular SCN coupling to reveal a cell-autonomous circadian defect in Cry1(-/-) cells that is normally compensated by intercellular coupling in vivo.

Project description:Like neurons in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the master circadian pacemaker in the brain, single fibroblasts can function as independent oscillators. In the SCN, synaptic and paracrine signaling among cells creates a robust, synchronized circadian oscillation, whereas there is no evidence for such integration in fibroblast cultures. However, interactions among single-cell fibroblast oscillators cannot be completely excluded, because fibroblasts were not isolated in previous work. In this study, we tested the autonomy of fibroblasts as single-cell circadian oscillators in high- and low-density culture, by single-cell imaging of cells from PER2::LUC circadian reporter mice. We found greatly reduced PER2::LUC rhythmicity in low-density cultures, which could result from lack of either constitutive or rhythmic paracrine signals from neighboring fibroblasts. To discriminate between these 2 possibilities, we mixed PER2::LUC wild-type (WT) cells with nonluminescent, nonrhythmic Bmal1-/- cells, so that density of rhythmic cells was low but overall cell density remained high. In this condition, WT cells showed clear rhythmicity similar to high-density cultures. We also mixed PER2::LUC WT cells with nonluminescent, long period Cry2-/- cells. In this condition, WT cells showed a period no different from cells cultured with rhythmic WT cells or nonrhythmic Bmal1-/- cells. In previous work, we found that low K? suppresses fibroblast rhythmicity, and we and others have found that either low K? or low Ca²? suppresses SCN rhythmicity. Therefore, we attempted to rescue rhythmicity of low-density fibroblasts with high K? (21 mM), high Ca²? (3.6 mM), or conditioned medium. Conditioned medium from high-density fibroblast cultures rescued rhythmicity of low-density cultures, whereas high K? or Ca²? medium did not consistently rescue rhythmicity. These data suggest that fibroblasts require paracrine signals from adjacent cells for normal expression of rhythmicity, but that these signals do not have to be rhythmic, and that rhythmic signals from other cells do not affect the intrinsic periods of fibroblasts.

Dataset Information

Circadian rhythmicity and light sensitivity of the zebrafish brain.

Publications

Circadian rhythmicity and light sensitivity of the zebrafish brain.

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