Project description:Circadian clocks have evolved as time-measuring molecular devices to help organisms adapt their physiology to daily changes in light and temperature. Cycling transcription has been long hypothesized to account for the wealth of rhythmic protein abundance. However, cyclic degradation signals such as ubiquitylation could shape the rhythmic protein landscape as well. In order to document the circadian ubiquitylated proteome of Drosophila melanogaster, we took advantage of a new means of Ub purification based on in vivo biotinylation of AviTag-tagged ubiquitin by the BirA protein, the bioUb system. NeutrAvidin-bound fractions of head lysates were collected at four circadian times six hours apart and proteins were identified and quantified using a proteomic-based approach.
Project description:Circadian rhythms are daily oscillations in metabolism and physiology and are generated by the circadian clock. In fruit fly Drosophila, the circadian clock is generated by a transcription-translation feedback loop in which the positive arm components Clock and Cycle activate the expression of the Period and Timeless genes of negative arm, as well as other circadian clock-regulated genes. After being retained in the cytoplasm, the Period and Timeless proteins then migrate to the nucleus to inhibit the Clock/Cycle transactivity by protein-protein interactions (PPIs). The endogenous circadian clock is synchronized with the geological (solar) clock via photoreceptors. Drosophila Cryptochrome protein functions as a circadian photoreceptor. In the early morning, exposure of Cryptochrome to light causes a conformational change in it which results in the formation of new PPIs. Light-activated Cryptochrome interacts with the core clock protein Timeless and the E3 ubiquitin ligase-substrate adaptor protein Jetlag, which results in the ubiquitylation of Timeless by Jetlag-E3 ligase complex and then degradation of Timeless within minutes by proteasome system. Rapid degradation of Timeless and then its partner protein Period, because of its instability in the absence of Timeless, relieves the inhibition on the Clock/Cycle transcription factors suddenly. Therefore, Clock/Cycle-driven expression of circadian clock-regulated genes are induced again, which is the restart of the circadian oscillation or the resetting of the clock. Following Timeless degradation, Cryptochrome is also degraded so the photoreceptor mechanism does not start a new resetting signal until all the required factors are re-synthesized in a circadian manner. Light-dependent degradation of Drosophila Cryptochrome can be observed in Drosophila S2 cell line in culture. In this project, we aimed at finding the interactome of Cryptochrome protein in Drosophila S2 cell line under light and in the dark using proximity labeling method. Because of the fast kinetics of Cryptochrome degradation, we chose the enzymes that can saturate in less than one hour. TurboID (TID) and APEX2 enzymes label proteins with biotin in the proximity even though they work with different mechanisms. They were fused to Cryptochrome protein, and proximity labeling was performed in the dark or under light. We have identified novel light-dependent or -independent interactors of Drosophila Cryptochrome and confirmed some of them using classical coimmunoprecipitation technique.
Project description:Circadian clocks coordinate time-of-day specific metabolic and physiological processes to maximize performance and fitness. In addition to light, which is considered the strongest time cue to entrain animal circadian clocks, metabolic input has emerged as an important signal for clock modulation and entrainment, especially in peripheral clocks. Circadian clock proteins have been to be substrates of O-GlcNAcylation, a nutrient sensitive post-translational modification (PTM), and the interplay between clock protein O-GlcNAcylation and other PTMs, like phosphorylation, is expected to facilitate the regulation of circadian physiology by metabolic signals. Here, we used mass spectrometry proteomics to identify PTMs on PERIOD, the key biochemical timer of the Drosophila clock, over the circadian cycle.
Project description:The aim of this study was to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with variation in circadian photosensitivity in Drosophila, by measuring the locomotor response to early night light pulse (Zt15). We used QTL mapping of recombinant inbred lines (RIL), which was followed by microarrays expression comparison of two RI lines which differed significantly in their light response (RIL 104 shows a strong long phase delay response while RIL 58 shows a weak light response).