Circadian period integrates network information through activation of the BMP signaling pathway.

oleh: Esteban J Beckwith, E Axel Gorostiza, Jimena Berni, Carolina Rezával, Agustín Pérez-Santángelo, Alejandro D Nadra, María Fernanda Ceriani

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013-12-01

Deskripsi

Living organisms use biological clocks to maintain their internal temporal order and anticipate daily environmental changes. In Drosophila, circadian regulation of locomotor behavior is controlled by ∼150 neurons; among them, neurons expressing the PIGMENT DISPERSING FACTOR (PDF) set the period of locomotor behavior under free-running conditions. To date, it remains unclear how individual circadian clusters integrate their activity to assemble a distinctive behavioral output. Here we show that the BONE MORPHOGENETIC PROTEIN (BMP) signaling pathway plays a crucial role in setting the circadian period in PDF neurons in the adult brain. Acute deregulation of BMP signaling causes period lengthening through regulation of dClock transcription, providing evidence for a novel function of this pathway in the adult brain. We propose that coherence in the circadian network arises from integration in PDF neurons of both the pace of the cell-autonomous molecular clock and information derived from circadian-relevant neurons through release of BMP ligands.