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A comparative view of insect circadian clock systems

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Abstract

Recent studies revealed that the neuronal network controlling overt rhythms shows striking similarity in various insect orders. The pigment-dispersing factor seems commonly involved in regulating locomotor activity. However, there are considerable variations in the molecular oscillatory mechanism, and input and output pathways among insects. In Drosophila, autoregulatory negative feedback loops that consist of clock genes, such as period and timeless are believed to create 24-h rhythmicity. Although similar clock genes have been found in some insects, the behavior of their product proteins shows considerable differences from that of Drosophila. In other insects, mammalian-type cryptochrome (cry2) seems to work as a transcriptional repressor in the feedback loop. For photic entrainment, Drosophila type cryptochrome (cry1) plays the major role in Drosophila while the compound eyes are the major photoreceptor in others. Further comparative study will be necessary to understand how this variety of clock mechanisms derived from an ancestral one.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Kouji Yasuyama at Kawasaki Medical School for discussion and reading the earlier version of the manuscript, and Miss Tiffanie Chan for linguistic corrections. We also thank anonymous reviewers for their critical reading of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Kenji Tomioka

  2. Department of Biology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, 1-1 Hiraga Gakuendai, Inba-gun, Chiba, 270-1695, Japan

    Akira Matsumoto

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  1. Kenji Tomioka
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  2. Akira Matsumoto
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Correspondence to Kenji Tomioka.

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Tomioka, K., Matsumoto, A. A comparative view of insect circadian clock systems. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 67, 1397–1406 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-009-0232-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-009-0232-y

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