Project description:Living organisms detect seasonal changes in day length (photoperiod), and alter their physiological functions accordingly, to fit seasonal environmental changes. This photoperiodic system is implicated in seasonal affective disorders and the season-associated symptoms observed in bipolar disease and schizophrenia. Thyroid-stimulating hormone beta subunit (Tshb), induced in the pars tuberalis (PT), plays a key role in the pathway that regulates animal photoperiodism. However, the upstream inducers of Tshb expression remain unknown. Here we show that late-night light stimulation acutely triggers the Eya3-Six1 pathway, which directly induces Tshb expression. Using melatonin-proficient CBA/N mice, which preserve the photoperiodic Tshb-expression response, we performed a genome-wide expression analysis of the PT under chronic short-day and long-day conditions. These data comprehensively identified long-day and short-day genes, and indicated that late-night light stimulation induces long-day genes. We verified this by advancing and extending the light period by 8 hours, which acutely induced Tshb expression, within one day. In a genome-wide expression analysis under this condition, we searched for candidate upstream genes by looking for expression that preceded Tshb’s, and identified Eya3 gene. These results elucidate the comprehensive transcriptional photoperiodic response in the PT, revealing the complex regulation of Tshb expression and unexpectedly rapid response to light changes in the mammalian photoperiodic system. Mice were separated into 2 groups. One group was maintained under the short-day conditions (light: dark = 8 h:16 h, ZT0 = lights on, ZT8 = lights off, 400 lux) and the other was housed under long-day conditions (light:dark = 16 h:8 h, ZT0 = lights on, ZT16 = lights off, 400 lux) for 2 weeks. The PTs of both groups were retrieved every 4 h for 1 day (6 time points for each group), starting at ZT0. For the experiments performed during the first day of the long-day conditions, we applied two different conditions, following 3 weeks under short-day conditions. In one, the light-onset was advanced by 8 hours (advance condition), and in the other, the dark period was delayed by 8 hours (delay condition). PTs from both groups were obtained every 4 h for 1 day, starting at the lights-on time. (Lights on for the advance condition was ZT16 as defined by the short-day condition. Lights on for the delay condition was ZT0). We sampled 25 mice at each time point. This whole procedure was repeated twice (n = 2) to obtain experimental replicates.

Project description:Annual cycles in daylength provide an initial predictive environmental cue that plants and animals use to time seasonal biology. Seasonal changes in photoperiodic information acts to entrain endogenous programs in physiology to optimize an animal’s fitness. Attempts to identify the neural and molecular substrates of photoperiodic time measurement in birds have, to date, focussed on blunt changes in light exposure during a restricted period of photoinducibility. The objectives of these studies were first to characterise a molecular seasonal clock in Japanese quail and second, to identify the key transcripts involved in endogenously generated interval timing that underlies photosensitivity in birds. We hypothesized that the mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH) provides the neuroendocrine control of photoperiod-induced changes in reproductive physiology, and that the pars distalis of the pituitary gland contains an endogenous internal timer for the short photoperiod dependent development of reproductive photosensitivity. Here we report distinct seasonal waveforms of transcript expression in the MBH, and pituitary gland and discovered the patterns were not synchronized across tissues. Follicle-stimulating hormone-β (FSHβ) expression increased during the simulated spring equinox, prior to photoinduced increases in prolactin, thyrotropin-stimulating hormone-β and testicular growth. Diurnal analyses of transcript expression showed sustained elevated levels of FSHβ under conditions of the spring equinox, compared to autumnal equinox, short (<12L) and long (>12L) photoperiods. FSHβ expression increased in quail held in non-stimulatory short photoperiod, indicative of the initiation of an endogenously programmed interval timer. These data identify that FSHβ establishes a state of photosensitivity for the external coincidence timing of seasonal physiology. The independent regulation of FSHβ expression provides an alternative pathway through which other supplementary environmental cues, such as temperature, can fine tune seasonal reproductive maturation and involution.

Project description:Seasonal adaptation to changes in light:dark regimes (i.e., photoperiod) allows organisms living at temperate latitudes to anticipate environmental change and adjust their physiology and behavior accordingly. The circadian system has been implicated in measurement and response to changes in photoperiod in nearly all animals studied so far (Saunders, 2011). The use of both traditional and non-traditional model insects with robust seasonal responses has recently genetically demonstrated the central role that clock genes play in photoperiodic response. Yet, the molecular pathways involved in insect photoperiodic responses remain largely unknown. Here, using the Eastern North American monarch butterfly (Reppert et al, 2016; Denlinger et al, 2017), we identified the vitamin A pathway as a novel pathway downstream of the circadian clock mediating insect photoperiod responsiveness. We found that interrupting clock function by disrupting circadian activation and repression abolishes photoperiodic responses in reproductive output, providing a functional link between clock genes and photoperiodic responsiveness in the monarch. Through transcriptomic approaches, we identified a molecular signature of seasonal-specific rhythmic gene expression in the brain, the organ known to function in photoperiodic reception in both Lepidoptera and some flies (Bowen et al, 1984; Saunders & Cymborowski, 1996). Among genes differentially expressed between both long and short photoperiods and between seasonal forms, several were belonging to the vitamin A pathway. The rhythmic expression of all of these genes was abolished in clock-deficient mutants. We also showed that a CRISPR/Cas9-mediated loss-of-function mutation in the pathway’s rate-limiting enzyme, ninaB1, impaired the monarch ability to respond to the photoperiod independently of visual function in the compound eye and without affecting circadian rhythms. Our finding that the vitamin A pathway is a key mediator of photoperiodic responses in insects could have broad implications for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying photoperiodism.

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Genome-wide maps of chromatin state in sheep pars tuberalis

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