Many different functions are regulated by circadian rhythms, including those orchestrated by discrete clock neurons within animal brains. To comprehensively characterize and assign cell identity to ...the 75 pairs of
circadian neurons, we optimized a single-cell RNA sequencing method and assayed clock neuron gene expression at different times of day. The data identify at least 17 clock neuron categories with striking spatial regulation of gene expression. Transcription factor regulation is prominent and likely contributes to the robust circadian oscillation of many transcripts, including those that encode cell-surface proteins previously shown to be important for cell recognition and synapse formation during development. The many other clock-regulated genes also constitute an important resource for future mechanistic and functional studies between clock neurons and/or for temporal signaling to circuits elsewhere in the fly brain.
Circadian clocks evolved as an adaptation to the cyclic change of day and night. To precisely adapt to this environment, the endogenous period has to be adjusted every day to exactly 24 hours by a ...process called entrainment. Organisms can use several external cues, called zeitgebers, to adapt. These include changes in temperature, humidity, or light. The latter is the most powerful signal to synchronize the clock in animals. Research shows that a complex visual system and circadian photoreceptors work together to adjust animal physiology to the outside world. This review will focus on the importance of the visual system for clock synchronization in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. It will cover behavioral and physiological evidence that supports the importance of the visual system in light entrainment.
Animal circadian rhythms persist in constant darkness and are driven by intracellular transcription-translation feedback loops. Although these cellular oscillators communicate, isolated mammalian ...cellular clocks continue to tick away in darkness without intercellular communication. To investigate these issues in
, we assayed behavior as well as molecular rhythms within individual brain clock neurons while blocking communication within the ca. 150 neuron clock network. We also generated CRISPR-mediated neuron-specific circadian clock knockouts. The results point to two key clock neuron groups: loss of the clock within both regions but neither one alone has a strong behavioral phenotype in darkness; communication between these regions also contributes to circadian period determination. Under these dark conditions, the clock within one region persists without network communication. The clock within the famous PDF-expressing s-LNv neurons however was strongly dependent on network communication, likely because clock gene expression within these vulnerable sLNvs depends on neuronal firing or light.
Seven neuropeptides are expressed within the Drosophila brain circadian network. Our previous mRNA profiling suggested that Allatostatin-C (AstC) is an eighth neuropeptide and specifically expressed ...in dorsal clock neurons (DN1s). Our results here show that AstC is, indeed, expressed in DN1s, where it oscillates. AstC is also expressed in two less well-characterized circadian neuronal clusters, the DN3s and lateral-posterior neurons (LPNs). Behavioral experiments indicate that clock-neuron-derived AstC is required to mediate evening locomotor activity under short (winter-like) and long (summer-like) photoperiods. The AstC-Receptor 2 (AstC-R2) is expressed in LNds, the clock neurons that drive evening locomotor activity, and AstC-R2 is required in these neurons to modulate the same short photoperiod evening phenotype. Ex vivo calcium imaging indicates that AstC directly inhibits a single LNd. The results suggest that a novel AstC/AstC-R2 signaling pathway, from dorsal circadian neurons to an LNd, regulates the evening phase in Drosophila.
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•AstC is a novel signaling neuropeptide in the Drosophila clock circuit•AstC is expressed in the DN1, DN3, and LPN clock neuron clusters•AstC inhibits a single LNd clock cell to modulate seasonal evening activity
Díaz et al. characterize AstC as a new neuropeptide involved in the Drosophila circadian neural network. AstC released from a subset of the clock neurons inhibits a single LNd to modulate evening activity under short and long photoperiods.
Light is the most important Zeitgeber to entrain the circadian clock of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to the 24-h cycle on earth. The fruit fly's circadian clock is very light sensitive, ...mainly because about half of the 150 clock neurons in the fly's brain express the blue-light photopigment, Cryptochrome, which provokes an immediate degradation of the clock protein Timeless upon activation by light. Consequently, Drosophila's molecular clock can reset very fast to measure the changes in environmental-lighting conditions. However, usually the responses of the molecular clock to light are not directly measured, but conclusions about entrainment of the circadian clock are drawn from recording the flies' locomotor activity rhythms. Here, we review how the flies' locomotor activity can be recorded under different light regimes and how entrainment can be analyzed and properly judged. We also summarize the influence of different recording and lighting methods on the flies' activity pattern, highlight their advantages and disadvantages, and stress general pitfalls.
The genus Drosophila contains over 2,000 species that, stemming from a common ancestor in the Old World Tropics, populate today very different environments 1, 2 (reviewed in 3). We found significant ...differences in the activity pattern of Drosophila species belonging to the holarctic virilis group, i.e., D. ezoana and D. littoralis, collected in Northern Europe, compared to that of the cosmopolitan D. melanogaster, collected close to the equator. These behavioral differences might have been of adaptive significance for colonizing high-latitude habitats and hence adjust to long photoperiods. Most interestingly, the flies’ locomotor activity correlates with the neurochemistry of their circadian clock network, which differs between low and high latitude for the expression pattern of the blue light photopigment cryptochrome (CRY) and the neuropeptide Pigment-dispersing factor (PDF) 4–6. In D. melanogaster, CRY and PDF are known to modulate the timing of activity and to maintain robust rhythmicity under constant conditions 7–11. We could partly simulate the rhythmic behavior of the high-latitude virilis group species by mimicking their CRY/PDF expression patterns in a laboratory strain of D. melanogaster. We therefore suggest that these alterations in the CRY/PDF clock neurochemistry might have allowed the virilis group species to colonize high-latitude environments.
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•This is the first detailed analysis of fruit fly daily activity under long days•D. ezoana and D. littoralis circadian clock differ from that of D. melanogaster•In flies, CRY and PDF are essential for adapting to long days•Changing CRY/PDF distribution in melanogaster mimics northern species daily activity
The circadian clock modulates daily activity. Menegazzi et al. found a functional link between the clock neurochemistry of fruit flies species and their ability to adjust activity to long summer days. The expression pattern of clock components in northern species might be of advantage for life in the north.
The circadian clock is a timekeeper but also helps adapt physiology to the outside world. This is because an essential feature of clocks is their ability to adjust (entrain) to the environment, with ...light being the most important signal. Whereas cryptochrome-mediated entrainment is well understood in Drosophila, integration of light information via the visual system lacks a neuronal or molecular mechanism. Here, we show that a single photoreceptor subtype is essential for long-day adaptation. These cells activate key circadian neurons, namely the large ventral-lateral neurons (lLNvs), which release the neuropeptide pigment-dispersing factor (PDF). RNAi and rescue experiments show that PDF from these cells is necessary and sufficient for delaying the timing of the evening (E) activity in long-day conditions. This contrasts to PDF that derives from the small ventral-lateral neurons (sLNvs), which are essential for constant darkness (DD) rhythmicity. Using a cell-specific CRISPR/Cas9 assay, we show that lLNv-derived PDF directly interacts with neurons important for E activity timing. Interestingly, this pathway is specific for long-day adaptation and appears to be dispensable in equinox or DD conditions. The results therefore indicate that external cues cause a rearrangement of neuronal hierarchy, which contributes to behavioral plasticity.
•Receptor cell 8 of the compound eyes is essential for long-day adaptation•PDF from the lLNvs is necessary and sufficient for long-day adaptation•Disruption of the PDF receptor suggests a direct connection between lLNvs and LNds•The targets of PDF neurons change depending on environmental conditions
Schlichting et al. describe the contribution of a single photoreceptor subtype to long-day adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster. Light information from this receptor is integrated into the clock network by PDF release from the lLNvs, suggesting a shift of neuronal dominance in the network, depending on environmental conditions.
Significance The moon provides highly reliable time information to organisms. Whereas sunlight is known to set daily animal timing systems, mechanistic insight into the impact of moonlight on such ...systems remains scarce. We establish that the marine bristleworm
times the precise hours of mass spawning by integrating lunar light information into a plastic daily timing system able to run with circadian (∼24 h) or circalunidian (∼24.8 h) periodicity. The correct interpretation of moonlight is mediated by the interplay of two light sensors: a cryptochrome and a melanopsin ortholog provide information on light valence and moonrise time, respectively. Besides its ecological relevance, our work provides a plausible explanation for long-standing observations of light intensity-dependent differences in circadian clock periods.
Circadian clocks are thought to be essential for timing the daily activity of animals, and consequently increase fitness. This view was recently challenged for clock-less fruit flies and mice that ...exhibited astonishingly normal activity rhythms under outdoor conditions. Compensatory mechanisms appear to enable even clock mutants to live a normal life in nature. Here, we show that gradual daily increases/decreases of light in the laboratory suffice to provoke normally timed sharp morning (M) and evening (E) activity peaks in clock-less flies. We also show that the compound eyes, but not Cryptochrome (CRY), mediate the precise timing of M and E peaks under natural-like conditions, as CRY-less flies do and eyeless flies do not show these sharp peaks independently of a functional clock. Nevertheless, the circadian clock appears critical for anticipating dusk, as well as for inhibiting sharp activity peaks during midnight. Clock-less flies only increase E activity after dusk and not before the beginning of dusk, and respond strongly to twilight exposure in the middle of the night. Furthermore, the circadian clock responds to natural-like light cycles, by slightly broadening Timeless (TIM) abundance in the clock neurons, and this effect is mediated by CRY.
A major challenge for all organisms that live in temperate and subpolar regions is to adapt physiology and activity to different photoperiods. A long-standing model assumes that there are morning (M) ...and evening (E) oscillators with different photoreceptive properties that couple to dawn and dusk, respectively, and by this way adjust activity to the different photoperiods. In the fruit fly
, M and E oscillators have been localized to specific circadian clock neurons in the brain. Here, we investigate under different photoperiods the activity pattern of flies expressing the clock protein PERIOD (PER) only in subsets of M and E oscillators. We found that all fly lines that expressed PER only in subsets of the clock neurons had difficulties to track the morning and evening in a wild-type manner. The lack of the E oscillators advanced M activity under short days, whereas the lack of the M oscillators delayed E activity under the same conditions. In addition, we found that flies expressing PER only in subsets of clock neurons showed higher activity levels at certain times of day or night, suggesting that M and E clock neurons might inhibit activity at specific moments throughout the 24 h. Altogether, we show that the proper interaction between all clock cells is important for adapting the flies' activity to different photoperiods and discuss our findings in the light of the current literature.
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