Skip to main content
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses

New Research In

Physical Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Applied Physical Sciences
  • Astronomy
  • Computer Sciences
  • Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

Social Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Economic Sciences
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Political Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Social Sciences

Biological Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Agricultural Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Applied Biological Sciences
  • Biochemistry
  • Biophysics and Computational Biology
  • Cell Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Evolution
  • Genetics
  • Immunology and Inflammation
  • Medical Sciences
  • Microbiology
  • Neuroscience
  • Pharmacology
  • Physiology
  • Plant Biology
  • Population Biology
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
  • Systems Biology
Research Article

Stomach ghrelin-secreting cells as food-entrainable circadian clocks

Joseph LeSauter, Nawshin Hoque, Michael Weintraub, Donald W. Pfaff, and Rae Silver
PNAS August 11, 2009 106 (32) 13582-13587; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0906426106
Joseph LeSauter
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Nawshin Hoque
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Michael Weintraub
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Donald W. Pfaff
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: pfaff@rockefeller.edu qr@columbia.edu
Rae Silver
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: pfaff@rockefeller.edu qr@columbia.edu
  1. Contributed by Donald W. Pfaff, June 10, 2009 (received for review May 13, 2009)

This article has a Correction. Please see:

  • Correction - September 10, 2009
  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Increases in arousal and activity in anticipation of a meal, termed “food anticipatory activity” (FAA), depend on circadian food-entrainable oscillators (FEOs), whose locations and output signals have long been sought. It is known that ghrelin is secreted in anticipation of a regularly scheduled mealtime. We show here that ghrelin administration increases locomotor activity in nondeprived animals in the absence of food. In mice lacking ghrelin receptors, FAA is significantly reduced. Impressively, the cumulative rise of activity before food presentation closely approximates a Gaussian function (r = 0.99) for both wild-type and ghrelin receptor knockout animals, with the latter having a smaller amplitude. For both groups, once an animal begins its daily anticipatory bout, it keeps running until the usual time of food availability, indicating that ghrelin affects response threshold. Oxyntic cells coexpress ghrelin and the circadian clock proteins PER1 and PER2. The expression of PER1, PER2, and ghrelin is rhythmic in light–dark cycles and in constant darkness with ad libitum food and after 48 h of food deprivation. In behaviorally arrhythmic-clock mutant mice, unlike control animals, there is no evidence of a premeal decrease in oxyntic cell ghrelin. Rhythmic ghrelin and PER expression are synchronized to prior feeding, and not to photic schedules. We conclude that oxyntic gland cells of the stomach contain FEOs, which produce a timed ghrelin output signal that acts widely at both brain and peripheral sites. It is likely that other FEOs also produce humoral signals that modulate FAA.

  • circadian rhythms
  • oxyntic gland
  • clock genes
  • food anticipatory activity
  • food-entrainable oscillator

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: pfaff{at}rockefeller.edu or qr{at}columbia.edu
  • Author contributions: J.L. and R.S. designed research; J.L., N.H., and M.W. performed research; D.W.P. and R.S. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; J.L., N.H., M.W., D.W.P., and R.S. analyzed data; and J.L., D.W.P., and R.S. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0906426106/DCSupplemental.

View Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Stomach ghrelin-secreting cells as food-entrainable circadian clocks
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Stomach ghrelin-secreting cells as food-entrainable circadian clocks
Joseph LeSauter, Nawshin Hoque, Michael Weintraub, Donald W. Pfaff, Rae Silver
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2009, 106 (32) 13582-13587; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0906426106

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Stomach ghrelin-secreting cells as food-entrainable circadian clocks
Joseph LeSauter, Nawshin Hoque, Michael Weintraub, Donald W. Pfaff, Rae Silver
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2009, 106 (32) 13582-13587; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0906426106
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 106 (32)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Article Classifications

  • Biological Sciences
  • Neuroscience

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Conclusion
    • Materials and Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Abstract depiction of a guitar and musical note
Science & Culture: At the nexus of music and medicine, some see disease treatments
Although the evidence is still limited, a growing body of research suggests music may have beneficial effects for diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Image credit: Shutterstock/agsandrew.
Large piece of gold
News Feature: Tracing gold's cosmic origins
Astronomers thought they’d finally figured out where gold and other heavy elements in the universe came from. In light of recent results, they’re not so sure.
Image credit: Science Source/Tom McHugh.
Dancers in red dresses
Journal Club: Friends appear to share patterns of brain activity
Researchers are still trying to understand what causes this strong correlation between neural and social networks.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Yeongsik Im.
White and blue bird
Hazards of ozone pollution to birds
Amanda Rodewald, Ivan Rudik, and Catherine Kling talk about the hazards of ozone pollution to birds.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Goats standing in a pin
Transplantation of sperm-producing stem cells
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can improve the effectiveness of spermatogonial stem cell transplantation in mice and livestock, a study finds.
Image credit: Jon M. Oatley.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490