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New Study Demonstrates the Role of Glial Cells in Circadian Timing
August 02, 2007 at 3:49 PM
Research News
“Our results suggest that an autonomous glial mechanism may drive circadian rhythms in the activity of a Drosophila protein known as Ebony,” says F. Rob Jackson, PhD, director of the CNR and professor of neuroscience at TUSM. “Ebony activity and the glia containing that activity” explains Jackson, “function independently of, or in concert with, other brain cells (neurons) to control circadian behavior.”
“Most organisms,” says Jackson, “from Drosophila to humans, have the ability to adapt the timing of behavior or other processes to environmental cycles using an intrinsic time-keeping device called a circadian clock.” While previous studies have suggested that glia may be required for normal circadian behavior, specific glial factors that are needed for this process had not been identified.
Jackson and his colleague Joowon Suh, a student in the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences neuroscience program at Tufts, used cellular and molecular genetic techniques to show that Ebony is localized exclusively in glial cells, and that it is involved in one of the commonly studied rhythmic behaviors observed in Drosophila—locomotor activity.
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