Circadian-independent cell mitosis in immortalized fibroblasts

Mijung Yeom; Julie S. Pendergast; Yoshihiro Ohmiya; Shin Yamazaki

doi:10.1073/pnas.0914078107

New Research In

Edited by Joseph S. Takahashi, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, and approved April 16, 2010 (received for review December 5, 2009)

Abstract

Two prominent timekeeping systems, the cell cycle, which controls cell division, and the circadian system, which controls 24-h rhythms of physiology and behavior, are found in nearly all living organisms. A distinct feature of circadian rhythms is that they are temperature-compensated such that the period of the rhythm remains constant (∼24 h) at different ambient temperatures. Even though the speed of cell division, or growth rate, is highly temperature-dependent, the cell-mitosis rhythm is temperature-compensated. Twenty-four-hour fluctuations in cell division have also been observed in numerous species, suggesting that the circadian system is regulating the timing of cell division. We tested whether the cell-cycle rhythm was coupled to the circadian system in immortalized rat-1 fibroblasts by monitoring cell-cycle gene promoter-driven luciferase activity. We found that there was no consistent phase relationship between the circadian and cell cycles, and that the cell-cycle rhythm was not temperature-compensated in rat-1 fibroblasts. These data suggest that the circadian system does not regulate the cell-mitosis rhythm in rat-1 fibroblasts. These findings are inconsistent with numerous studies that suggest that cell mitosis is regulated by the circadian system in mammalian tissues in vivo. To account for this discrepancy, we propose two possibilities: (i) There is no direct coupling between the circadian rhythm and cell cycle but the timing of cell mitosis is synchronized with the rhythmic host environment, or (ii) coupling between the circadian rhythm and cell cycle exists in normal cells but it is disconnected in immortalized cells.

Footnotes

²To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: shin.yamazaki{at}vanderbilt.edu.
Author contributions: M.Y. and S.Y. performed research; M.Y., Y.O., and S.Y. designed research; Y.O. and S.Y. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; M.Y., J.S.P., and S.Y. analyzed data; and J.S.P. and S.Y. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.0914078107/-/DCSupplemental.