scholarly journals Cognitive Impairment and Dementia: Gaining Insight through Circadian Clock Gene Pathways

Biomolecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1002
Author(s):  
Kenneth Maiese

Neurodegenerative disorders affect fifteen percent of the world’s population and pose a significant financial burden to all nations. Cognitive impairment is the seventh leading cause of death throughout the globe. Given the enormous challenges to treat cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, and the inability to markedly limit disease progression, circadian clock gene pathways offer an exciting strategy to address cognitive loss. Alterations in circadian clock genes can result in age-related motor deficits, affect treatment regimens with neurodegenerative disorders, and lead to the onset and progression of dementia. Interestingly, circadian pathways hold an intricate relationship with autophagy, the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), the silent mating type information regulation 2 homolog 1 (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) (SIRT1), mammalian forkhead transcription factors (FoxOs), and the trophic factor erythropoietin. Autophagy induction is necessary to maintain circadian rhythm homeostasis and limit cortical neurodegenerative disease, but requires a fine balance in biological activity to foster proper circadian clock gene regulation that is intimately dependent upon mTOR, SIRT1, FoxOs, and growth factor expression. Circadian rhythm mechanisms offer innovative prospects for the development of new avenues to comprehend the underlying mechanisms of cognitive loss and forge ahead with new therapeutics for dementia that can offer effective clinical treatments.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (42) ◽  
pp. eabb5202
Author(s):  
Shuai Wang ◽  
Yanke Lin ◽  
Feng Li ◽  
Zifei Qin ◽  
Ziyue Zhou ◽  
...  

We uncover a cycling and NF-κB–driven lncRNA (named Lnc-UC) that epigenetically modifies transcription of circadian clock gene Rev-erbα, thereby linking circadian clock to colitis. Cycling expression of Lnc-UC is generated by the central clock protein Bmal1 via an E-box element. NF-κB activation in experimental colitis transcriptionally drives Lnc-UC through direct binding to two κB sites. Lnc-UC ablation disrupts colonic expressions of clock genes in mice; particularly, Rev-erbα is down-regulated and its diurnal rhythm is blunted. Consistently, Lnc-UC promotes expression of Rev-erbα (a known dual NF-κB/Nlrp3 repressor) to inactivate NF-κB signaling and Nlrp3 inflammasome in macrophages. Furthermore, Lnc-UC ablation sensitizes mice to experimental colitis and abolishes the diurnal rhythmicity in disease severity. Mechanistically, Lnc-UC physically interacts with Cbx1 protein to reduce its gene silencing activity via H3K9me3, thereby enhancing Rev-erbα transcription and expression. In addition, we identify a human Lnc-UC that has potential to promote Rev-erbα expression and restrain inflammations.


Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Ivana Škrlec ◽  
Jasminka Talapko ◽  
Snježana Džijan ◽  
Vera Cesar ◽  
Nikolina Lazić ◽  
...  

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a combination of cardiovascular risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. The circadian clock gene polymorphisms are very likely to participate in metabolic syndrome genesis and development. However, research findings of the association between circadian rhythm gene polymorphisms and MetS and its comorbidities are not consistent. In this study, a review of the association of circadian clock gene polymorphisms with overall MetS risk was performed. In addition, a meta-analysis was performed to clarify the association between circadian clock gene polymorphisms and MetS susceptibility based on available data. The PubMed and Scopus databases were searched for studies reporting the association between circadian rhythm gene polymorphisms (ARNTL, BMAL1, CLOCK, CRY, PER, NPAS2, REV-ERBα, REV-ERBβ, and RORα) and MetS, and its comorbidities diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. Thirteen independent studies were analyzed with 17,381 subjects in total. The results revealed that the BMAL1 rs7950226 polymorphism was associated with an increased risk of MetS in the overall population. In contrast, the CLOCK rs1801260 and rs6850524 polymorphisms were not associated with MetS. This study suggests that some circadian rhythm gene polymorphisms might be associated with MetS in different populations and potentially used as predictive biomarkers for MetS.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroki Takekata ◽  
Yu Matsuura ◽  
Shin G. Goto ◽  
Aya Satoh ◽  
Hideharu Numata

The clock mechanism for circatidal rhythm has long been controversial, and its molecular basis is completely unknown. The mangrove cricket, Apteronemobius asahinai , shows two rhythms simultaneously in its locomotor activity: a circatidal rhythm producing active and inactive phases as well as a circadian rhythm modifying the activity intensity of circatidal active phases. The role of the clock gene period ( per ), one of the key components of the circadian clock in insects, was investigated in the circadian and circatidal rhythms of A. asahinai using RNAi. After injection of double-stranded RNA of per , most crickets did not show the circadian modulation of activity but the circatidal rhythm persisted without a significant difference in the period from controls. Thus, per is functionally involved in the circadian rhythm but plays no role, or a less important role, in the circatidal rhythm. We conclude that the circatidal rhythm in A. asahinai is controlled by a circatidal clock whose molecular mechanism is different from that of the circadian clock.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2756
Author(s):  
Julianie De La Cruz Minyety ◽  
Dorela D. Shuboni-Mulligan ◽  
Nicole Briceno ◽  
Demarrius Young ◽  
Mark R. Gilbert ◽  
...  

Circadian clock genes have been linked to clinical outcomes in cancer, including gliomas. However, these studies have not accounted for established markers that predict the prognosis, including mutations in Isocitrate Dehydrogenase (IDH), which characterize the majority of lower-grade gliomas and secondary high-grade gliomas. To demonstrate the connection between circadian clock genes and glioma outcomes while accounting for the IDH mutational status, we analyzed multiple publicly available gene expression datasets. The unsupervised clustering of 13 clock gene transcriptomic signatures from The Cancer Genome Atlas showed distinct molecular subtypes representing different disease states and showed the differential prognosis of these groups by a Kaplan–Meier analysis. Further analyses of these groups showed that a low period (PER) gene expression was associated with the negative prognosis and enrichment of the immune signaling pathways. These findings prompted the exploration of the relationship between the microenvironment and clock genes in additional datasets. Circadian clock gene expression was found to be differentially expressed across the anatomical tumor location and cell type. Thus, the circadian clock expression is a potential predictive biomarker in glioma, and further mechanistic studies to elucidate the connections between the circadian clock and microenvironment are warranted.


GeroScience ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Giulia Bacalini ◽  
Flavia Palombo ◽  
Paolo Garagnani ◽  
Cristina Giuliani ◽  
Claudio Fiorini ◽  
...  

AbstractMany physiological processes in the human body follow a 24-h circadian rhythm controlled by the circadian clock system. Light, sensed by retina, is the predominant “zeitgeber” able to synchronize the circadian rhythms to the light-dark cycles. Circadian rhythm dysfunction and sleep disorders have been associated with aging and neurodegenerative diseases including mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the present study, we aimed at investigating the genetic variability of clock genes in AD patients compared to healthy controls from Italy. We also included a group of Italian centenarians, considered as super-controls in association studies given their extreme phenotype of successful aging. We analyzed the exon sequences of eighty-four genes related to circadian rhythms, and the most significant variants identified in this first discovery phase were further assessed in a larger independent cohort of AD patients by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry. The results identified a significant association between the rs3027178 polymorphism in the PER1 circadian gene with AD, the G allele being protective for AD. Interestingly, rs3027178 showed similar genotypic frequencies among AD patients and centenarians. These results collectively underline the relevance of circadian dysfunction in the predisposition to AD and contribute to the discussion on the role of the relationship between the genetics of age-related diseases and of longevity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 3134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qin Wang ◽  
Yue Yin ◽  
Weizhen Zhang

Obese mice demonstrate disruption of the circadian clock and feeding cycle. Circulating ghrelin, a hormone secreted mainly by gastric X/Alike cells, is significantly reduced in obese humans and animals. Here, we examined whether ghrelin improves the disruption of the circadian rhythm in steatotic hepatocytes and liver. The effects of ghrelin on hepatic circadian clock genes were studied in steatotic hepatocytes and liver of mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 12 weeks. The circadian clock of cultured hepatocytes was synchronized by treatment with 100 nM dexamethasone for 1 h. Ghrelin was administrated to the cultured hepatocytes (10−8 M) or to mice at a dose of 11 nmol/kg/d for two weeks via a subcutaneous minipump. The mRNA and protein levels of core clock genes were analyzed. Steatosis significantly blunted the circadian pattern of clock genes such as Bmal1, Clock, and Per in cultured hepatocytes and liver. Treatment with ghrelin markedly restored the daily rhythm of the clock genes, with a robust oscillation between peak and trough in cultured hepatocytes isolated from obese mice. It also increased the abundance and expression amplitude of clock genes in steatotic liver, causing the peak of Clock to shift to the dark period and the peak of Per2 to shift to the light period compared with the control groups. Deletion of GHSR1a further deteriorated the derangement of clock gene patterns in obese mice. Ghrelin significantly increased the oscillations of mTOR/S6 signaling. We demonstrate that ghrelin restored the derangement of the circadian rhythm in steatotic liver via mTOR signaling.


Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1664
Author(s):  
Nan-Sun Kim ◽  
Su-Jeong Kim ◽  
Jung-Su Jo ◽  
Jun-Gu Lee ◽  
Soo-In Lee ◽  
...  

Circadian clocks integrate environmental cues with endogenous signals to coordinate physiological outputs. Clock genes in plants are involved in many physiological and developmental processes, such as photosynthesis, stomata opening, stem elongation, light signaling, and floral induction. Many Brassicaceae family plants, including Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa ssp. pekinensis), produce a unique glucosinolate (GSL) secondary metabolite, which enhances plant protection, facilitates the design of functional foods, and has potential medical applications (e.g., as antidiabetic and anticancer agents). The levels of GSLs change diurnally, suggesting a connection to the circadian clock system. We investigated whether circadian clock genes affect the biosynthesis of GSLs in Brassica rapa using RNAi-mediated suppressed transgenic Brassica rapa GIGENTEA homolog (BrGI knockdown; hereafter GK1) Chinese cabbage. GIGANTEA plays an important role in the plant circadian clock system and is related to various developmental and metabolic processes. Using a validated GK1 transgenic line, we performed RNA sequencing and high-performance liquid chromatography analyses. The transcript levels of many GSL pathway genes were significantly altered in GK1 transgenic plants. In addition, GSL contents were substantially reduced in GK1 transgenic plants. We report that the BrGI circadian clock gene is required for the biosynthesis of GSLs in Chinese cabbage plants.


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