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Circadian gene Clock participates in mitochondrial apoptosis pathways by regulating mitochondrial membrane potential, mitochondria out membrane permeablization and apoptosis factors in AML12 hepatocytes

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Abstract

Circadian rhythms help organisms adapt to changes of external environment by regulating energy metabolism and remaining the balance of homeostasis. Numerous researches have proved that the physiological function of liver was precisely controlled by circadian rhythms. Clock, one of core circadian genes, has been demonstrated to regulate the oxidative phosphorylation process of mitochondrial, which provides energy for living cells and acts as one of the hub for apoptosis. However, whether Clock gene regulates mitochondrial apoptosis pathways in liver cells remains less explored. In the present study, we used lentiviral vector to establish a stable AML12 cell lines which were capable of expressing specific shRNA to interfere the expression of Clock gene and investigated the effect of Clock on mitochondrial apoptosis pathways. Herein, we found that the interference of Clock gene could significantly suppress mitochondrial apoptosis pathways by stabilizing mitochondrial membrane potential and inhibiting mitochondria out membrane permeablization, which might be a result of lower expression of BAD and BIM proteins. Moreover, the interference of Clock gene could downregulate the expression of mitochondrial apoptosis factors, i.e. AIF, CYCS, APAF-1 and SMAC, which will suppress the formation of apoptosome and the process of DNA degradation to further inhibit apoptosis process. This work provides an insight on the important role of Clock gene participating in mitochondrial apoptosis pathways of hepatocytes and unveils a probable pathogenesis of how circadian rhythm regulates liver diseases.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Open fund of Key Laboratory of Herbal-Tebitan Drug Screening and Deep Processing of Gansu Province and National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB711000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Herbal-Tebitan Drug Screening and Deep Processing of Gansu Province, School of Life Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, 730050, China

    Shuhong Yang & Yimei Guo

  2. Health Ministry Key Laboratory of Chronobiology, School of Preclinic and Forensic Medical, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

    Shuhong Yang, Yanyou Liu, Fang Qi, Xiaoxue Li, Shuting Cheng & Zhengrong Wang

  3. School of Medicine and Nursing, Chengdu University, Chengdu, China

    Rong Liu

  4. Institute of Neurology, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China

    Hang Yu

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  1. Shuhong Yang
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Contributions

Conception and design: Shuhong Yang, Yanyou Liu, Shuting Cheng; Data collection: Shuhong Yang, Yimei Guo, Fang Qi, Xiaoxue Li,; Data analysis and interpretation: Shuhong Yang, Rong Liu, Hang Yu; Drafting the article: Shuhong Yang; Critical revision of the article: Shuting Cheng, Zhengrong Wang.

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Correspondence to Shuhong Yang.

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Yang, S., Liu, Y., Guo, Y. et al. Circadian gene Clock participates in mitochondrial apoptosis pathways by regulating mitochondrial membrane potential, mitochondria out membrane permeablization and apoptosis factors in AML12 hepatocytes. Mol Cell Biochem 467, 65–75 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-020-03701-1

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