Molecular Genetics of Circadian Rhythms in Neurospora Crassa Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Endogenous circadian clocks provide organisms with the capability to keep in synchrony with the external world. The clock generates a program with a duration of approximately 24 hours, allowing organisms to anticipate cyclic changes in the environment so that they can coordinate biological activities to occur at appropriate times of day. Demonstrations of circadian rhythms are widespread, and in the fungi, the clock has been shown to control daily rhythms in spore development and liberation. Within the fungi, Neurospora crassa provides a powerful model organism for investigations into the underlying processes of circadian rhythms. Through genetic and molecular approaches, significant progress has been made in describing the N. crassa circadian system. As discussed in this chapter, the analysis of the N. crassa clock has provided important details on 1) the autoregulatory transcription-translation feedback loop through which the clock is assembled, 2) how environmental signals are perceived and result in clock resetting, and 3) the identification and function of rhythmically expressed genes regulated by clock output pathways. 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

author list (cited authors)

  • Correa, A., Greene, A. V., Lewis, Z. A., & Bell-Pedersen, D.

citation count

  • 1

complete list of authors

  • Correa, Alejandro||Greene, Andrew V||Lewis, Zachary A||Bell-Pedersen, Deborah

publication date

  • January 2003