Circadian clock, cell cycle and cancer

• Main Authors: Cansu Özbayer, İrfan Değirmenci
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dicle University Medical School 2011-12-01
• Series: Dicle Medical Journal
• Subjects: Cancer; cell cycle; circadian clock
• Online Access: http://www.dicle.edu.tr/fakulte/tip/dergi/yayin/384/28.pdf

There are a few rhythms of our daily lives that we are under the influence. One of them is characterized by predictable changes over a 24-hour timescale called circadian clock. This cellular clock is coordinated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the anterior hypothalamus. The clock consist of an autoregulatory transcription-translation feedback loop compose of four genes/proteins; BMAL1, Clock, Cyrptochrome, and Period. BMAL 1 and Clock are transcriptional factors and Period and Cyrptochrome are their targets. Period and Cyrptochrome dimerize in the cytoplasm to enter the nucleus where they inhibit Clock/BMAL activity.It has been demonstrate that circadian clock plays an important role cellular proliferation, DNA damage and repair mechanisms, checkpoints, apoptosis and cancer.