Crosstalk between Mouse Metabolism and the Circadian Clock

Mini-Symposium

1 ECTS       (participation at both sessions)
0.25 ECTS (participation only in the morning)

FRIDAY, September 17, 2010
08:30AM - 16:30PM

Dinner: 19:00

Address:
CHUV
YERSIN Auditorium
Rue du Bugnon 21
1011 Lausanne

Faculty/Staff - Student

Joseph Bass

"Clock Genes in Behavior and Insulin Secretion"

Northwestern
University USA

Etienne Challet

Jurgen Ripperger

University
Fribourg

Dmitri Firsov

Circadian clocks are operative in virtually all light-sensitive organisms, including cyanobacteria, fungi, plants, protozoans and metazoans. These timing devices allow their possessors to adapt their physiological needs to the time of day in an anticipatory way.

In mammals, circadian pacemakers regulate many systemic processes, such as sleep-wake cycles, body temperature, heartbeat, and many physiological outputs conducted by peripheral organs, such as liver, kidney and the digestive tract. On the basis of surgical ablation and transplantation experiments it was established that the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus coordinates most (if not all) daily rhythms in behaviour and physiology.

During the past few years, impressive progress has been made in the elucidation of molecular mechanisms generating circadian oscillations in a variety of organisms. In all of these systems, autoregulatory feedback loops in gene expression are believed to contribute to the rhythm-generating clockwork circuitry.

It appears that self-sustained and cell-autonomous molecular oscillators do not only exist in pacemaker cells such as SCN neurons, but are also operative in most peripheral, non-neuronal cell types. These peripheral oscillators participate in the circadian control of animal physiology. Thus, the interconnection of peripheral oscillators with the circadian clock-regulated feeding rhythms is a fundamental phenomenon in the regulation of animal metabolism.

Recently, the use of organ specific deletion of clock-regulators in mouse gives important information about the role of the local clock in pancreas and kidney physiology. The goal of this mini-symposium is to recapitulate these recent discoveries with their authors.