The global daily dynamics of the pineal transcriptome

BUSTOS, DIEGO M; BAILEY, MICHAEL; SUGDEN, DAVID; CARTER, DAVID; MØLLER, MORTEN; RATH, MARTIN; COON, STEVEN; WELLER, JOAN; KLEIN, DAVID C

CELL AND TISSUE RESEARCH

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2011 vol. 344 p. 1 - 11

0302-766X

Transcriptome profiling of the pineal gland has revealed night/day differences in the expression of a major fraction of the genes active in this tissue, with two-thirds of these being nocturnal increases. A set of over 600 transcripts exhibit two-fold to >100-fold daily differences in abundance. These changes appear to be primarily attributable to adrenergic-cyclic-AMP-dependent mechanisms, which are controlled via a neural pathway that includes the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the master circadian oscillator. In addition to melatonin synthesis, night/day differences in gene expression impact genes associated with several specialized functions, including the immune/inflammation response, photo-transduction, and thyroid hormone/retinoic acid biology. The following nonspecialized cellular features are also affected: adhesion, cell cycle/cell death, cytoskeleton, DNA modification, endothelium, growth, RNA modification, small molecule biology, transcription factors, vesicle biology, signaling involving Ca(2+), cyclic nucleotides, phospholipids, mitogen-activated protein kinases, the Wnt signaling pathway, and protein phosphorylation