哺乳动物生物钟昼夜节律同步机制的研究进展

Study advances on coordination of circadian timing in mammals

哺乳动物昼夜节律生物钟是以24 h为周期的自主维持的振荡器。在分子水平上,生物钟的振荡由自身调控反馈环路的转录和翻译组成,并接受外界环境因素的影响,通过下丘脑视叉上核(Supra Ch iasm atic N u-cleus,SCN)中枢震荡器的同步整和而产生作用。文章对生物钟上下游的分布、反馈环路的转录、翻译后事件、视觉通路、钟的整和等方面进行了综述,并对其今后的研究方向作了展望。

The circadian clock is a self-sustaining oscillator that has a period of about 24 hours to perform in mammals. The clock oscillator is composed of a transcription/translation-based autoregulatory feedback loop and can synchronize itself to changing environmental conditions. It functions by central clock oscillator to coordinate the molecular basis of circadian timing in suprachiasmatic nucleus （SCN） of hypothalamus. Advances about distribution of hirearchy oscillators, transcriptional feedback loops, several post-translation events as well as photic input to the SCN and circadian timing clock were reviewed. The direction for the future application research was also suggested.