Post-transcriptional control of the mammalian circadian clock: implications for health and disease

Transcriptional architecture of the mammalian circadian clock

Circadian clocks are endogenous oscillators that control 24-hour physiological and behavioural processes in organisms. These cell-autonomous clocks are composed of a transcription-translation-based autoregulatory feedback loop. With the development of next-generation sequencing approaches, biochemical and genomic insights into circadian function have recently come into focus. Genome-wide analyses of the clock transcriptional feedback loop have revealed a global circadian regulation of processes such as transcription factor occupancy, RNA polymerase II recruitment and initiation, nascent transcription, and chromatin remodelling. The genomic targets of circadian clocks are pervasive and are intimately linked to the regulation of metabolism, cell growth and physiology.

Association of CLOCK, ARNTL, PER2, and GNB3 polymorphisms with diurnal preference in a Korean population

Polymorphisms in human circadian genes are potential genetic markers that affect diurnal preference in several populations. In this study, we evaluated whether four polymorphisms in circadian genes CLOCK, ARNTL, PER2, and GNB3 were associated with diurnal preference in a Korean population. In all, 499 healthy subjects were genotyped for four functional polymorphisms in CLOCK, ARNTL, PER2, and GNB3. Composite scale of morningness (CSM) was applied to measure phenotype patterns of human diurnal preference. In addition, three subscale scores, i.e. "morningness," "activity planning," and "morning alertness," were extracted from the CSM. No significant associations were observed between CSM scores and CLOCK (rs1801260) genotype or T allele carrier status, CSM scores and ARNTL (rs2278749) C allele carrier status, and CSM scores and GNB3 (rs5443) genotype or C allele carrier status. However, total CSM scores and scores of its subscales were significantly associated with PER2 (rs934945) genotype (p = 0.010, p = 0.018, and p = 0.005 for total, morningness, and activity planning, respectively) and G allele carrier status (p = 0.003, p = 0.005, and p = 0.002 for total, morningness, and activity planning, respectively). The best model result obtained by performing multifactor dimensionality reduction analysis ([Formula: see text]² = 11.2798, p = 0.0008) indicated that interaction among C/T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in ARNTL, C/T SNP in GNB3, and G/A SNP in PER2 synergistically affected the risk associated with diurnal preference toward eveningness. These results suggest that circadian gene PER2 is associated with diurnal preference in healthy Korean population. Although polymorphisms in ARNTL and GNB3 were not significantly associated with diurnal preference, their interactions with the polymorphism in PER2 may synergistically increase the risk of diurnal preference toward eveningness.