Special Interest Group Meeting

Hierarchical Gene Regulation in Neurospora Circadian Clock

Gencer Sancar, Cigdem Sancar, Kristina M. Smith, Axel Diernfellner, Deborah Bell-Pedersen, Michael Freitag and Michael Brunner

Circadian clocks are cellular time keepers which regulate many aspects of physiology and behavior in organisms ranging from cyanobacteria to mammals. They generate daily oscillations of gene expression assisting the organism to harmonize with the 24-hour day/night cycle of the earth. In Neurospora crassa rhythmic expression of genes are controlled by the activity of the White Collar Complex (WCC). WCC is the central transcription factor of the Neurospora circadian clock and can be directly activated by blue light. Despite considerable efforts only few direct targets of WCC have been identified to date. In addition, we lack of information about the hierarchical organization underlying the physiological responses to light. To address these questions we have performed chromatin immunoprecipitation of WCC after a light pulse followed by high throughput sequencing o0f the enriched DNA (ChIP-seq). By mapping these regions to Neurospora genome we have identified hundreds of candidate binding sites including promoters of 24 transcription factors. Moreover, we have applied ChIP-seq to two of the candidate transcription factors to elucidate second tier targets and to characterize the network of gene regulation of the circadian clock.

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