Clock Gene period Plays an Essential Role in Photoperiodic Control of Nymphal Development in the Cricket Modicogryllus siamensis

Photoperiodic regulation of development is a common strategy for insects in the temperate zone to adapt to the seasonally changing environment. Although the circadian clock is generally thought to be involved, the underlying time measurement mechanism is still elusive. Here, we demonstrate that the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biological rhythms 2009-10, Vol.24 (5), p.379-390
Main Authors: Sakamoto, Tomoaki, Uryu, Outa, Tomioka, Kenji
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino Acid Sequence
Animals
Behavior, Animal - physiology
Biological Clocks - genetics
Biology
Circadian rhythm
Circadian Rhythm - physiology
Gryllidae
Gryllidae - genetics
Gryllidae - growth & development
Insects
Molecular Sequence Data
Motor ability
Motor Activity - physiology
Nymph - genetics
Nymph - growth & development
Period Circadian Proteins - classification
Period Circadian Proteins - genetics
Period Circadian Proteins - metabolism
Periodicity
Photoperiod
Phylogeny
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
RNA Interference
Sequence Alignment
Time Factors
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Summary:Photoperiodic regulation of development is a common strategy for insects in the temperate zone to adapt to the seasonally changing environment. Although the circadian clock is generally thought to be involved, the underlying time measurement mechanism is still elusive. Here, we demonstrate that the circadian clock gene period (per) plays an essential role in the photoperiodic regulation of nymphal development in the cricket Modicogryllus siamensis. Nymphal development of this cricket depends on photoperiods, being accelerated by long days and slowed down by short days. We examined the role of per in the nymphal photoperiodic response as well as circadian rhythm generation using parental RNA interference (pRNAi). per mRNA levels in nymphal heads showed a rhythmic expression with the pattern dependent on photoperiods, and pRNAi significantly suppressed the per mRNA level with no significant rhythmicity in the early nymphal stage. Irrespective of photoperiods, nymphs treated with per pRNAi showed adult emergence patterns neither of intact nymphs nor of DsRed2 pRNAi nymphs kept under long days or under short days but similar to those kept under constant dark conditions. Most per pRNAi adults showed arrhythmic or aberrant circadian locomotor activity. These results suggest that the photoperiodic time measurement requires the normal circadian clock that is controlled by the per gene.
ISSN:0748-7304
1552-4531
DOI:10.1177/0748730409341523