Night/day changes in pineal expression of >600 genes: central role of adrenergic/cAMP signaling.

ABSTRACT: The pineal gland plays an essential role in vertebrate chronobiology by converting time into a hormonal signal, melatonin, which is always elevated at night. Here we have analyzed the rodent pineal transcriptome using Affymetrix GeneChip(R) technology to obtain a more complete description of pineal cell biology. The effort revealed that 604 genes (1,268 probe sets) with Entrez Gene identifiers are differentially expressed greater than 2-fold between midnight and mid-day (false discovery rate <0.20). Expression is greater at night in approximately 70%. These findings were supported by the results of radiochemical in situ hybridization histology and quantitative real time-PCR studies. We also found that the regulatory mechanism controlling the night/day changes in the expression of most gene

SUBMITTER: Bailey MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2658055 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature