Publication Date:
2002-12-14
Description:
The master circadian oscillator in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus is entrained to the day/night cycle by retinal photoreceptors. Melanopsin (Opn4), an opsin-based photopigment, is a primary candidate for photoreceptor-mediated entrainment. To investigate the functional role of melanopsin in light resetting of the oscillator, we generated melanopsin-null mice (Opn4-/-). These mice entrain to a light/dark cycle and do not exhibit any overt defect in circadian activity rhythms under constant darkness. However, they display severely attenuated phase resetting in response to brief pulses of monochromatic light, highlighting the critical role of melanopsin in circadian photoentrainment in mammals.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Panda, Satchidananda -- Sato, Trey K -- Castrucci, Ana Maria -- Rollag, Mark D -- DeGrip, Willem J -- Hogenesch, John B -- Provencio, Ignacio -- Kay, Steve A -- MH 62405/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- MH51573/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2002 Dec 13;298(5601):2213-6.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, 10675 John J. Hopkins Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12481141" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Biological Clocks/physiology
;
Circadian Rhythm/*physiology
;
Darkness
;
Female
;
Gene Targeting
;
*Light
;
Light Signal Transduction
;
Male
;
Mice
;
Mice, Inbred C57BL
;
Mice, Knockout
;
Motor Activity
;
Retinal Ganglion Cells/physiology
;
Rod Opsins/genetics/*physiology
;
Suprachiasmatic Nucleus/physiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
