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Circadian oscillation of a mammalian homologue of the Drosophila period gene

Nature volume 389, pages 512–516 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

Many biochemical, physiological and behavioural processes in organisms ranging from microorganisms to vertebrates exhibit circadian rhythms1. In Drosophila, the gene period (per) is required for the circadian rhythms of locomotor activity and eclosion behaviour2. Oscillation in the levels of per mRNA and Period (dPer) protein in the fly brain is thought to be responsible for the rhythmicity3,4. However, no per homologues in animals other than insects have been identified. Here we identify the human and mouse genes (hPER and mPer, respectively) encoding PAS-domain (PAS, a dimerization domain present in Per, Amt and Sim)-containing polypeptides that are highly homologous to dPer. Besides this structural resemblance, mPer shows autonomous circadian oscillation in its expression in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is the primary circadian pacemaker in the mammalian brain5,6. Clock, a mammalian clock gene encoding a PAS-containing polypeptide7,8, has now been cloned: it is likely that the Per homologues dimerize with other molecule(s) such as Clock through PAS–PAS interaction in the circadian clock system.

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Figure 1: IMS–PCR (see Methods).
Figure 2: Amino-acid sequence comparisons of the Period family.
Figure 3: Northern blot analysis of hPER and mPer.
Figure 4: Autonomous cycling of mPer mRNA in the mouse SCN.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Inazawa and M. Hirai for mapping hPER and mPer, respectively; Y.Maebayashi for technical assistance, S.-T. Inouye and M. Hattori for discussion; and D. Yamamoto, R.Ueda, T. Ito and K. Ui-Tei for comments and discussions on the manuscript. This work was partly supported by research grants from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, and the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Genome Center, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1, Shirokanedai Minato-ku, Tokyo, 108, Japan

    Hajime Tei, Ritsuko Ozawa, Matsumi Hirose & Yoshiyuki Sakaki

  2. Department of Anatomy and Brain Science, Kobe University School of Medicine, 7-5-1, Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe, 650, Japan

    Hitoshi Okamura & Yasufumi Shigeyoshi

  3. Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, MB10 10666 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, 92037, California, USA

    Chiaki Fukuhara

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  1. Hajime Tei
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Correspondence to Hajime Tei.

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Tei, H., Okamura, H., Shigeyoshi, Y. et al. Circadian oscillation of a mammalian homologue of the Drosophila period gene. Nature 389, 512–516 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/39086

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