GTC
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE ADVANCED SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
 QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     


Genes to Cells (2004) 9, 697-708. doi:10.1111/j.1356-9597.2004.00758.x
© 2004 Blackwell Publishing or its licensors

This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sanada, K.
Right arrow Articles by Fukada, Y.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sanada, K.
Right arrow Articles by Fukada, Y.

Serine phosphorylation of mCRY1 and mCRY2 by mitogen-activated protein kinase

Kamon Sanada1,a,{dagger}, Yuko Harada1,b,{dagger}, Mihoko Sakai1, Takeshi Todo2 and Yoshitaka Fukada1,*

1 Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
2 Radiation Biology Centre, Kyoto University, Yoshida-konoecho, Sakyo-Ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan


    Abstract
 Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Results
 Discussion
 Experimental procedures
 References
 
The circadian oscillator is composed of a transcription/translation-based autoregulatory feedback loop in which Cryptochromes and Periods function as negative regulators for their own gene expression. Although post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation of these regulators appear crucial for circadian time-keeping mechanism, less is known about responsible protein kinases and their contribution to the function of the regulators. We found that mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) associates with and phosphorylates mouse Cryptochromes (mCRY1 and mCRY2). Mass spectrometry analysis identified Ser265 and Ser557 of mCRY2 to be in vitro phospho-acceptor residues. Mutations of both the Ser residues to Ala completely abolished MAPK-mediated mCRY2 phosphorylation, suggesting that the two residues are the principal phosphorylation sites in mCRY2. Similarly, MAPK phosphorylates mCRY1 at Ser247, a site corresponding to Ser265 of mCRY2. An effect of the Ser phosphorylation was investigated by mutating Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2 to Asp, which resulted in attenuation of each mCRYs’ ability to inhibit BMAL1: CLOCK-mediated transcription, whereas a similar mutation at Ser557 of mCRY2 induced no measurable change in its activity. These results illustrate a model of MAPK-mediated negative regulation of mCRY function by phosphorylation at the specific Ser residue.


    Introduction
 Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Results
 Discussion
 Experimental procedures
 References
 
Cryptochromes (CRYs) are members of the DNA photolyase/cryptochrome flavoprotein family, and they are widely distributed across plants and animals (Todo et al. 1996; Cashmore et al. 1999; Todo 1999). CRYs were initially identified in plants as structural homologues of the DNA repair enzyme, DNA photolyase, but plant CRYs lack DNA repair activity and instead regulate growth, flowering time, phototropism and entrainment of circadian rhythms in response to blue light (Somers et al. 1998; Cashmore et al. 1999). Mice have two CRY proteins (mCRY1 and mCRY2), and they are expressed in many tissues including the retina and suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus (Kobayashi et al. 1998; Miyamoto & Sancar 1998). Mice lacking both mCRY1 and mCRY2 exhibit arrhythmic behaviour immediately upon placement in constant darkness (van der Horst et al. 1999), indicating their essential role in maintenance of the circadian rhythm. Recent genetic and molecular analyses of the oscillator revealed a molecular oscillation composed of a transcription/translation-based negative feedback loop, in which CRYs and Periods (PERs) function as negative regulators of transcription (Dunlap 1999; Reppert & Weaver 2002). In mice, a heterodimer of two basic helix-loop-helix-PAS transcription factors, CLOCK and BMAL1, binds to CACGTG E-box elements for transcriptional activation of Cry genes (Kume et al. 1999) as well as Per genes (Gekakis et al. 1998). Their products, CRYs and PERs then feed back to inhibit BMAL1:CLOCK-induced transcription (Kume et al. 1999), resulting in decrease of the protein levels of CRYs and PERs, and this allows the molecular cycle to start again with E-box-dependent transcription.

In the autoregulatory feedback loop, post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation of clock gene products are likely to contribute to maintenance of the 24-h rhythm by producing an appropriate time-lag (Dunlap 1999). In mammals, PER protein is phosphorylated and destabilized by casein kinase I{varepsilon} (Takano et al. 2000; Vielhaber et al. 2000; Lee et al. 2001), a homologue of Drosophila double-time whose missence alleles result in alteration of PER stability and the period length of the circadian rhythm (Kloss et al. 1998; Price et al. 1998). Also, a defect in hamster casein kinase I{varepsilon} corresponds to the short period Tau mutation (Lowrey et al. 2000), and these observations indicate a significant contribution of protein kinase to the circadian time-keeping mechanism. Like PER protein, positive regulators, BMAL1 and CLOCK seem to be phosphorylated in clock structures (Lee et al. 2001), and one candidate kinase responsible for BMAL1 phosphorylation is mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) which phosphorylates and negatively regulates BMAL1 (Sanada et al. 2002). Notably, MAPK (Sanada et al. 2000) and p38 stress-activated protein kinase (Hayashi et al. 2003) play important roles for the circadian time-keeping in the chick pineal clock system.

MAPK exhibits circadian activation in various clock structures such as the mouse SCN (Obrietan et al. 1998; Nakaya et al. 2003), chicken pineal gland (Sanada et al. 2000; Hayashi et al. 2001), bullfrog retina (Harada et al. 2000) and chicken retina (Ko et al. 2001), and a transient inhibition of MAPK delays the phase of the oscillator in chick pineal and bullfrog retinal culture (Harada et al. 2000; Sanada et al. 2000). Recent studies suggest that MAPK-mediated signals play more divergent roles in various aspects of the clockwork, such as photic (Butcher et al. 2002) and non-photic (Akashi & Nishida 2000) entrainment pathways, time-keeping of the oscillator (Harada et al. 2000; Sanada et al. 2000, 2002) and an output pathway (Ko et al. 2001; Williams et al. 2001). Within clock structures such as the SCN, functionally distinct populations of clock cells seem to exist in terms of mode of circadian and photic regulation of MAPK (Obrietan et al. 1998; Lee et al. 2003; Butcher et al. 2003; Nakaya et al. 2003). Consideration of these circumstances led us to examine a possibility that MAPK may phosphorylate diverse regulators of the clock system. In the present study, we found that MAPK binds to and phosphorylates mCRY1 and mCRY2 and that the phosphorylation alters their functional properties, suggesting temporal regulation of mCRYs’ function in the vertebrate clock structures.


    Results
 Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Results
 Discussion
 Experimental procedures
 References
 
We first determined whether MAPK physically associates with mCRYs in mammalian cells by co-immunoprecipitation assay. FLAG epitope-tagged kinase-dead MAPK (FLAG-KR-MAPK) was coexpressed with myc epitope-tagged mCRY (myc-mCRY1 or myc-mCRY2) in COS7 cells, followed by precipitation with anti-FLAG antibody. As shown in Fig. 1, FLAG-KR-MAPK co-precipitated myc-mCRY1 (lane 6, top panel) and myc-mCRY2 (lane 12, top). Coexpression of constitutive active MEK (DE-MEK) with FLAG-KR-MAPK and myc-mCRY induced extensive phosphorylation of FLAG-KR-MAPK (lanes 2 and 8, middle) with phosphorylation-dependent mobility-shift (lanes 2 and 8, bottom). Under the condition, myc-mCRYs were again co-precipitated with FLAG-KR-MAPK (lanes 5 and 11, top), indicating interaction of mCRYs with both unphosphorylated and phosphorylated MAPK in mammalian cells. In the absence of FLAG-KR-MAPK, no detectable amount of each myc-mCRY was found in the precipitate (lanes 4 and 10), and FLAG-KR-MAPK showed no measurable interaction with myc epitope-tagged enhanced green fluorescent protein under the condition (data not shown). These results support specific interactions between MAPK and mCRY proteins.



View larger version (46K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Figure 1  Interaction between mCRYs and MAPK. COS7 cells were transiently transfected with various combinations of plasmids expressing FLAG-KR-MAPK, DE-MEK, and either myc-mCRY1 (A) or myc-mCRY2 (B) as indicated. The cell lysate (220 µg proteins) was subjected to immunoprecipitation with anti-FLAG antibody, and the immunecomplex was blotted with anti-myc antibody (top panels), anti-P-MAPK antibody (middle panels), or anti-FLAG antibody (bottom panels). The cell lysate (22 µg proteins) used in the immunoprecipitation was directly loaded in the same gel (input) to compare the amounts of expressed proteins by immunoblotting. Asterisks indicate endogenous ERK2 phosphorylated by MEK.

 
Phosphorylation of mCRY1 and mCRY2 by MAPK

Each mCRY has four potential sites for MAPK phosphorylation with a minimal consensus sequence Ser/Thr-Pro (Davis 1993), and three of them are found at positions conserved between mCRY1 and mCRY2. These sites are Ser247, Ser252 and Ser281 in mCRY1 and Ser265, Ser270 and Thr299 in mCRY2. To examine MAPK-catalysed phosphorylation of mCRY proteins, we employed in vitro kinase assay in which bacterially expressed glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-fused mCRYs (GST-mCRYs) was incubated with either phosphorylated or non-phosphorylated MAPK (P-myc-MAPK or myc-MAPK, respectively). As shown in Fig. 2A, both GST-mCRY1 and GST-mCRY2 were phosphorylated by P-myc-MAPK but not by myc-MAPK, whereas no phosphorylation of GST was observed. Quantitative analysis of the time course of the reaction revealed that mCRY1 and mCRY2 incorporated approx. 1.5 pmol of phosphate per pmol of protein (Fig. 2B), predicting at least two sites in each mCRY protein to be phosphorylated by activated MAPK.



View larger version (56K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Figure 2  Phosphorylation of mCRY1 and mCRY2 by MAPK. (A) GST, GST-mCRY1 or GST-mCRY2 was incubated for 20 min with myc-MAPK or P-myc-MAPK in the presence of radiolabelled ATP and subjected to SDS-PAGE, followed by autoradiography (left panel). Coomassie Blue staining pattern of the gel is shown in the right panel. (B) GST-mCRY1 or GST-mCRY2 was incubated with P-myc-MAPK as in (A), and incorporation of 32P into mCRY protein was quantified by an image analyser (FLA2000, Fujifilm, Tokyo, Japan). The values are the mean ± range of variation of two independent measurements.

 
MAPK phosphorylates mCRY2 at Ser265 and Ser557

To identify the phosphorylation sites, GST-mCRY2 was phosphorylated by P-myc-MAPK in vitro and digested with trypsin. Then, the tryptic fragments of GST-mCRY2 were separated by reversed-phase HPLC (Fig. 3, middle trace), and the isolated fragments were subjected to matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS). As a control sample, GST-mCRY2 was incubated with non-phosphorylated myc-MAPK that catalyses no measurable phosphorylation of mCRY2 (Fig. 2A), and its tryptic fragments were similarly isolated (Fig. 3, top trace) for MALDI-TOF/MS analysis. In this control experiment, three peak fractions (P1–P3) showed mass signals at m/z 914.8 (P1), 1906.4 (P2) and 1729.9 (P3), corresponding to the mCRY2 sequences, Ala550-Lys559, Met257-Arg274 and Asn297-Arg311, respectively (Table 1), in which four putative MAPK phosphorylation sites were found. MS-based sequence analysis corroborated the assignment of these fragments kept in non-phosphorylated forms. On the other hand, a careful comparison between the elution profiles of the two samples (phosphorylated and non-phosphorylated mCRY2) revealed two unique peaks (P4 and P6) in the phosphorylated sample (Fig. 3), suggesting a phosphorylation-dependent shift in elution position of peptides. A fragment in peak P4 exhibited a MALDI-TOF/MS signal at m/z 994.7, which agreed with the calculated mass (994.9) of Ala550-Lys559 (915.0) plus one phosphate group (79.9; see Table 1). A nearby peak P5 gave a mass signal at m/z 915.2 corresponding to the same sequence in the non-phosphorylated state, and its elution position coincided with that of peak P1 containing the same peptide (Fig. 3). Similarly, peak P6 and its nearby peak P7 gave mass signals at m/z 1986.0 and 1905.9, respectively, the former of which corresponded to the singly phosphorylated form of the latter peptide Met257-Arg274 (calculated mass: 1906.2; see Table 1). The fragment in peak P8 was assigned to Asn297-Arg311 (Table 1), and its phosphorylated form was not detected in the eluted peaks though the peptide sequence contains one potential site for MAPK phosphorylation.



View larger version (26K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Figure 3  Separation of proteolytic fragments of mCRY2 by reversed-phase HPLC. Phosphorylated (middle trace) or non-phosphorylated (top trace) mCRY2 was digested with trypsin, and the tryptic fragments were separated by a reversed-phase Cosmosil 5C18-P300 column (4.6 x 150 mm; Nacalai Tesque, Kyoto, Japan) equipped with HPLC system (model 600E, Waters). The fragments were eluted with a linear gradient of 10–50% acetonitrile (1%/min) in 0.05% trifluoroacetic acid at a flow rate of 1 mL/min, and the absorbance of the eluate at 214 nm was continuously monitored. Peptide fragments in peaks P1–P8 contain putative MAPK phosphorylation sites.

 

View this table:
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Table 1  Mass analysis of proteolytic fragments containing putative MAPK phosphorylation sites
 
In the two singly phosphorylated peptides (P4 and P6), Ala550-Lys559 (P4) contains a single potential site, Ser557 (Table 1), to be phosphorylated by MAPK, whereas Met257-Arg274 (P6) contains two potential sites (Table 1). To determine the phosphorylation site, the phosphorylated Met257-Arg274 peptide (termed P6 peptide) was subjected to MS-based sequence analysis (see ‘Experimental procedures’). The mixture of partially hydrolysed P6 peptide yielded an array of MALDI-TOF/MS signals, which were assigned to ions of sequentially degraded fragments with or without a phosphate group. As summarized in Table 2, the loss of one phosphate group was observed at the degradation step from Ser265-Arg274 to Pro266-Arg274, indicating that Ser265 is the site of in vitro phosphorylation. Together, we concluded that mCRY2 is phosphorylated by MAPK at Ser265 and Ser557.


View this table:
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Table 2  Mass analysis of P6 peptide based on partial degradation by dilute HCl
 
Ser265, but not Ser557, of mCRY2 is conserved in mCRY1 sequence at the corresponding position (Ser247), raising the possibility of phosphorylation of mCRY1 at Ser247. To test this, GST-mCRY1 was subjected to a similar analysis, in which we focused two tryptic fragments showing MALDI-TOF/MS signals at m/z 1904.9 and 1730.9. These correspond to Met239-Arg256 (calculated mass: 1905.0) and Asn279-Arg293 (calculated mass: 1730.9), which contain two (Ser247 and Ser252) and one (Ser281) potential MAPK phosphorylation sites, respectively. When GST-mCRY1 was phosphorylated by MAPK in vitro, the singly phosphorylated peptide Met239-Arg256 (observed mass: 1984.7) was detected in addition to its non-phosphorylated form, and the phosphorylation at Ser247 was supported by in vitro kinase assay with mCRY1 mutants (see below). On the other hand, no evidence was obtained for phosphorylation of Asn279-Arg293.

Mutations of Ser247 in mCRY1 and Ser265/Ser557 in mCRY2 diminish MAPK-mediated phosphorylation

In vitro phosphorylation of the Ser residues in mCRY proteins was examined by using mCRY mutants, in which individual phospho-acceptor Ser residues were replaced with Ala. As compared to wild-type mCRY2 (Fig. 4, lane 3), its mutants mCRY2(S265A) and mCRY2(S557A) showed significantly lower degrees of MAPK-catalysed phosphorylation (reduced to ~60%, lane 4 and to ~26%, lane 5), and the double mutant mCRY2(S265A/S557A) almost completely lost the ability to be phosphorylated (lane 6), indicating that these two Ser residues are the principal phosphorylation sites. Similarly, mCRY1(S247A) showed a much lower degree of phosphorylation than wild-type mCRY1 (reduced to ~55%, lanes 1 and 2), supporting Ser247 phosphorylation. Considering the maximal degree of mCRY1 phosphorylation (1.5 pmol phosphate per pmol of protein; Fig. 2B), we assume MAPK-catalysed mCRY1 phosphorylation at Ser247 and at least one additional site that was not identified here.



View larger version (37K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Figure 4  Mutations of Ser residues in mCRY reduced MAPK-mediated phosphorylation. Either wild-type or mutant mCRY protein indicated was incubated with P-myc-MAPK in the presence of radiolabelled ATP for 20 min and subjected to SDS-PAGE, followed by autoradiography (top panel). Coomassie Blue staining pattern of the gel is shown in the middle panel. Incorporation of 32P into mCRY proteins was quantified by an image analyser and shown in values (mean ± SEM, n = 3) relative to the value of wild-type mCRY1 (bottom panel).

 
Mutations of phospho-acceptor Ser in mCRYs alter their function

A functional significance of the Ser phosphorylation of mCRYs was examined by transcription assay. In the absence of exogenous mCRYs, coexpression of mouse BMAL1 and CLOCK markedly stimulated E-box element-dependent transcription of a luciferase reporter gene in HEK293 cells (Fig. 5A, left panel). This transactivation was suppressed by coexpression of wild-type mCRY1 (middle) or mCRY2 (right) in a manner dependent on the amount of transfected plasmids expressing mCRYs (open bars). We then constructed mutants in which phospho-acceptor Ser residues were replaced with Ala or Asp, either to prevent phosphorylation (Ser to Ala mutants) or to mimic the negative charge due to phosphorylation (Ser to Asp mutants), and the resultant mCRY1 mutants (S247A and S247D) and mCRY2 mutants (S265A, S265D, S557A and S557D) were tested for their abilities to inhibit the transactivation. All the mutants transfected at high concentrations (100 ng or 250 ng plasmid) inhibited BMAL1:CLOCK-mediated transcription to a degree similar to that achieved by each cognate wild-type mCRY (Fig. 5A), indicating maintenance of CRY function in these mutants. At lower dosage of plasmid (2 ng or 5 ng), however, two Asp mutants mCRY1(S247D) and mCRY2(S265D) exhibited significantly reduced inhibitory effect on BMAL1:CLOCK-mediated transcription (solid bars) than respective wild-type mCRYs (P < 0.01, ANOVA). In parallel, we examined protein expression levels of wild-type and each mutant in transfected HEK293 cells, and higher doses of the plasmids (400 ng and 800 ng) were employed for the evaluation because of the detection limit in immunoblotting. Under the condition, protein expression levels of wild-type and the mutant mCRYs increased in a manner dependent on the amount of each plasmid (Fig. 5B), and at a fixed amount of the plasmid, the protein level of each mutant was comparable to or slightly higher than that of wild-type, with no significant negative effect of the mutations on the expression level (P > 0.01, ANOVA, Fig. 5B).



View larger version (31K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Figure 5  Effects of mutations of phospho-acceptor Ser residues in mCRY on BMAL1:CLOCK-induced transcription mediated by E-box element. (A) HEK293 cells were transiently transfected with various combinations of plasmids expressing BMAL1 (250 ng plasmid), CLOCK (250 ng), and either myc-epitope tagged wild-type mCRY (2–250 ng) or mCRY mutants (2–250 ng) as indicated. Luciferase activity is presented as the mean ± SEM of three replicates. **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ANOVA with Tukey-Kramer posthoc test comparing the effect of the wild-type and mutant protein at the same transfected dosage. The data are representative results of three independent experiments with similar results. (B) Cell lysate was prepared from 293 cells transfected as in (A) except that 400 ng or 800 ng of plasmid expressing wild-type or mutant myc-mCRY was used. The lysate was blotted with anti-myc antibody (upper panel). The band densities of mCRY1 and mCRY2 were then quantified and shown in values (mean ± SEM, n = 3, lower panel) relative to those of wild-type mCRYs (800 ng of plasmid), respectively. No significant negative effect of mutation on mCRY expression levels was observed (n.s., P > 0.01, ANOVA).

 
We asked whether the negative effect of the Asp mutation on mCRYs’ function (Fig. 5A) is due to alteration of subcellular localization. In transient transfection assay in COS7 cells, not only wild-type but also mutant mCRYs were exclusively localized in nuclei in more than 85% of transfected cells (Fig. 6A), and no significant effect of the mutation was observed under the condition in terms of the subcellular localization of mCRYs (Fig. 6B). We then examined the effect of the mutation on the turn-over rate of the mCRY2 protein by expressing either wild-type or mutant mCRY2 in HEK293 cells, which were subsequently treated with cyclohexamide (CHX) to block protein synthesis. As shown in Fig. 6C, the amount of wild-type CRY2 gradually decreased after CHX treatment and reached to approx. 40% of the original after 24-h treatment. Similarly the protein levels of the mutants, myc-mCRY2 (S265A) and myc-mCRY2 (S265D) were down-regulated (Fig. 6C), and the quantitative analysis demonstrated that the time-courses of the degradation were indistinguishable among the wild-type and mutant mCRY2 proteins (Fig. 6D). It was concluded that the mutation-induced attenuation in mCRYs’ function is not attributable to change in subcellular localization nor protein stability. Based on these observations, we propose a model of MAPK-mediated functional attenuation of mCRYs by phosphorylation at Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2.



View larger version (39K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Figure 6  Subcellular localization and protein stability of mCRY mutants. (A, B) COS7 cells were transiently transfected with plasmid encoding wild-type or a mutant form of myc-mCRYs, and the cells were fixed 48 h after transfection. Then myc-mCRYs were visualized with anti-myc antibody (green), and the nuclei were stained with DAPI (red). Representative images of myc-mCRY1(wild-type, WT), myc-mCRY1(S247D, SD), myc-mCRY2(wild-type, WT) and myc-mCRY2(S265D, SD) were shown in (A). In each experiment, approx. 100 cells immunopositive to anti-myc antibody were examined for the subcellular localization, and the percentage of the cells where myc-mCRYs are exclusively localized in nuclei is plotted in (B). (C, D) HEK293 cells expressing myc-mCRY2(WT), myc-mCRY2(S265A), or myc-mCRY2(S265D) were treated with cyclohexamide (CHX, 10 µM) for 5, 12 and 24 h, and the amounts of mCRY2 of the lysates were compared with that before CHX-treatment (0 h) by immunoblotting with anti-myc antibody (C). The band densities of wild-type mCRY2 and its mutants in panel C were quantified and shown in values relative to those before the CHX-treatment (D).

 
Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2 are phosphorylated by MAPK in mammalian cells

We then asked whether Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2 were phosphorylated by MAPK in vivo. Since both mCRYs share identical amino acid sequences encompassing the phospho-acceptor Ser (Fig. 7A), we raised antisera against a single phospho-peptide [CNSLLAS(PO4)SPTGLS] corresponding to the conserved region. To characterize the affinity-purified antibody (termed anti-pS247/265-mCRYs; see Experimental procedures), bacterially expressed GST-mCRYs were phosphorylated by P-myc-MAPK in vitro and subjected to immunoblotting. The anti-pS247/265-mCRYs antibody detected the phosphorylated form of both GST-mCRY1 and GST-mCRY2, and showed no detectable cross-reaction with the unphosphorylated form (Fig. 7B). These results clearly demonstrate that the antibody specifically recognizes Ser247-phosphorylated mCRY1 and Ser265-phosphorylated mCRY2. We finally determined the phosphorylation state of mCRYs expressed in COS7 cells. When myc-CRYs were transiently expressed together with FLAG-MAPK and DE-MEK, the phospho-specific antibody detected a band corresponding to myc-mCRYs (Fig. 7C, lanes 3 and 5). In contrast, when coexpressed with kinase-dead MAPK (FLAG-KR-MAPK), neither myc-mCRY1 nor myc-mCRY2 was recognized by the antibody (Fig. 7C, lanes 2 and 4). Collectively, Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2, capable of being phosphorylated by MAPK in mammalian cells, would be functionally important sites for MAPK-mediated regulation of the clock machinery.



View larger version (45K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]
 
Figure 7  Phosphorylation of Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2 in COS7 cells. (A) Amino acids at 236–266 of mCRY1 and at 254–284 of mCRY2 are aligned with those of the corresponding regions in the other vertebrate CRYs. Identical amino acids are shown by black letters on grey backgrounds. The phospho-acceptor Ser residues are indicated by asterisks (Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2). The sequence used for synthesis of the phospho-peptide and for generation of phospho-specific antibody (anti-pS247/265-mCRYs antibody) is boxed. (B) GST-mCRY1 or GST-mCRY2 was incubated with or without P-myc-MAPK in the presence of 1 mM ATP at 30 °C for 2 h. Phosphorylated and non-phosphorylated GST-mCRYs (0.2 µg each) were then subjected to immunoblotting with anti-pS247/265-mCRYs antibody (left panel) and reprobed with anti-GST antibody (right panel). (C) COS7 cells were transiently transfected with various combinations of plasmids encoding myc-mCRY1, myc-mCRY2, FLAG-MAPK, FLAG-KR-MAPK, and DE-MEK. Cell extracts (40 µg proteins) were subjected to immunoblotting with anti-pS247/265-mCRYs antibody (upper panel) and reprobed with anti-myc antibody (lower panel).

 

    Discussion
 Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Results
 Discussion
 Experimental procedures
 References
 
In the present study, we demonstrated that activated MAPK phosphorylates Ser247 of mCRY1 and Ser265 of mCRY2 in cultured mammalian cells (Fig. 7C) and in addition, Ser557 of mCRY2 in vitro (Tables 1 and 2, Fig. 4). We would note that the sequence encompassing Ser247 in mCRY1 and Ser265 in mCRY2 is highly conserved among vertebrate CRYs (Fig. 7A) such as human CRYs (hCRY1 and hCRY2), chicken CRYs (cCRY1 and cCRY2), Xenopus CRYs (xCRY2a and xCRY2b) and zebrafish CRYs (zCRY1a, zCRY1b, zCRY2a, zCRY2b and zCRY3) (Kobayashi et al. 1998, 2001; Yamamoto et al. 2001; Zhu & Green 2001a). In contrast, another site for MAPK phosphorylation, Ser557 in mCRY2, is conserved only among vertebrate CRY2 members such as hCRY2 (Kobayashi et al. 1998), cCRY2 (Yamamoto et al. 2001), xCRY2a/2b (Zhu & Green 2001a). Neither Ser nor Thr is found at the corresponding position in vertebrate CRY1s. Thus, it is likely that phosphorylation of Ser265 plays a general role in regulation of vertebrate CRYs, whereas Ser557 phosphorylation may associate with a more specific function of CRY2.

CRY is a member of the DNA photolyase/cryptochrome flavoprotein family, and each member contains reduced flavin-adenine dinucleotide (FADH-) as a cofactor. The FAD-binding sites are highly conserved among the members, and the phospho-acceptor residue, Ser247 of mCRY1 or Ser265 of mCRY2, is located in close proximity to FAD-contacting amino acid residues (e.g. Pro266-Ser270 of mCRY2) (Park et al. 1995). Functional interaction of FAD with nearby residues in CRY has been demonstrated by recent observations that the CRY functions are suppressed by mutations of amino acid residues that are implicated in FAD binding and in electron transport (Stanewsky et al. 1998; Zhu & Green 2001b; Froy et al. 2002). In the present study, introduction of a negative charge (Ser to Asp mutation) to the phospho-acceptor site near the FAD-binding pocket was shown to attenuate the mCRYs’ ability to inhibit BMAL1:CLOCK-mediated transcription (Fig. 5). In addition, the Ala mutation at this position had no effect on the mCRY activity, supporting a genuine importance of the negative charge in this region for negative regulation of mCRYs. The phosphorylation might induce electrostatic repulsion and/or attraction between phospho-Ser and its nearby amino acid residues and lead to change in mCRY structure (Froy et al. 2002), affecting FAD positioning and/or electron transport. It is also conceivable that the Asp mutation may reduce mCRY's affinity to BMAL1:CLOCK complex, because the effect of the Asp mutation became invisible when the mutant was expressed at relatively high level (Fig. 5A). If the Asp mutation may cause lowering of mCRY's affinity for BMAL1:CLOCK complex, then the mutant would exhibit a reduced activity only at a lower dose, and the higher dose of the mutant should mask the effect of the decreased affinity by mass action.

In contrast to the FAD-binding domain highly conserved among the members in the DNA photolyase/cryptochrome flavoprotein family, unique C-terminal extension is found in plant and animal CRYs, and another phospho-acceptor residue Ser557 lies in this region of mCRY2. Arabidopsis CRY protein associates with phytochrome A through the C-terminal extension, which is phosphorylated by phytochrome A-associated kinase activity and plays an important role in the maintenance of the circadian rhythms (Ahmad et al. 1998). Likewise the C-terminal extension of vertebrate CRYs is implicated in protein-protein interaction (Todo 1999), to which Ser557 of mCRY2 might contribute as a phosphorylation-dependent regulator. Knockout studies in mice have revealed that mCRY1 and mCRY2 contribute differently to the clockwork (van der Horst et al. 1999), so it is interesting to characterize the role of mCRY2-specific phosphorylation to uncover a functional difference of mCRY1 and mCRY2. In contrast to the phosphorylation near the FAD-binding site, phosphorylation of Ser557 in mCRY2 is unlikely to affect its molecular activity directly (Fig. 5). Ser557 phosphorylation may rather have an indirect regulatory role of facilitating cooperative phosphorylation at Ser265, as predicted from the robust inhibitory effect of S557A mutation on total mCRY2 phosphorylation (Fig. 4).

In the mouse SCN, protein levels of both mCRY1 and mCRY2 rise at late subjective day peaking at CT12 and decrease during the subjective night, showing robust circadian rhythms (Kume et al. 1999). Noticeably, MAPK activity increases during the subjective night in the central region of the mouse SCN (Obrietan et al. 1998; Lee et al. 2003; Nakaya et al. 2003), suggesting that mCRY activity would be progressively reduced during the nighttime by cooperative effects of both decreasing protein level and the MAPK-mediated attenuation of the activity. It is speculated that mCRYs are timely phosphorylated in vivo when the phosphorylation significantly affects their activities toward effective depletion of the residual mCRY activity at the later declining phase of mCRYs protein level. Such well-ordered degradation and inactivation of negative regulators could be very important for their cyclic expression because this process eliminating feedback inhibition of the transcription allows their RNA levels to rise again at an appropriate time of the day. Recently we have found MAPK-mediated negative regulation of BMAL1 transcriptional activity (Sanada et al. 2002). In the molecular feedback loop, BMAL1:CLOCK-mediated transcription of mCry/mPer is kept suppressed until protein levels of mCRY/mPER reach significantly low. This builds an appropriate time-lag from the phase of mCRY/mPER protein rhythm to that of mCry/mPer mRNA rhythm, and this lag should be important for the stable 24-h rhythm of the molecular oscillation. We speculate that MAPK may contribute to generation of the time-lag by regulating both positive and negative elements; i.e. MAPK promotes decrease in mCRYs’ activity on one hand, and at the same time delays a rise of mCry/mPer mRNA levels by suppressing BMAL1-mediated transactivation. Consequently, the increase of mCry/mPer mRNA is postponed even in the declining phase of the protein/activity level of mCRY during the subjective night.

All the phosphorylation sites of mCRYs identified in the present study are supposed to be the targets of other proline-directed kinases such as p38 stress-activated protein kinase. It is also reported that casein kinase I{varepsilon} phosphorylates mCRYs, though its functional significance remains unclear (Eide et al. 2002). Thus mCRYs are likely subject to regulation by multiple kinases in the clock structures, and further evaluation of post-translational regulation of mCRY function in clock structures would provide an insight into the mechanism underlying maintenance of a 24-h oscillation and photic entrainment of the circadian clock.


    Experimental procedures
 Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Results
 Discussion
 Experimental procedures
 References
 
Plasmids

For bacterial expression of mCRY1 and mCRY2 as GST-fusion proteins, open reading frames (ORFs) of mCRY1 and mCRY2 were ligated into pGEX-4T expression vector (Amersham Biosciences, Inc.). Mammalian expression vectors encoding myc epitope-tagged mCRY proteins were generated by inserting ORFs of mCRY1 and mCRY2 into EcoRI/XhoI sites and BamHI/XhoI sites of pCMV-Tag3B (Stratagene), respectively. Mutations (Ser to Ala or Asp) were introduced into mCrys by using a site-directed mutagenesis kit (Stratagene). The mammalian expression vector encoding FLAG epitope-tagged human K54R-ERK2 (kinase-dead mutant) was a kind gift of Masato Ogata (Osaka Medical School). The expression vectors for myc-epitope tagged chicken MAPK (myc-MAPK), constitutive active form of chicken MEK2 (DE-MEK) and GST-fused DE-MEK (GST-DE-MEK) were generated as described (Sanada et al. 2002). For transcription assay, mouse Bmal1 (a kind gift of Yoshiaki Fujii-Kuriyama at Tohoku University) were subcloned into pcDNA3.1 vector (Invitrogen). Mouse Clock subcloned into pcDNA3.1 is a kind gift of Charles J. Weitz at Harvard Medical School.

Preparation of recombinant proteins

GST-mCRY1, GST-mCRY2 and their mutants were expressed in E. coli strain BL21(DE3) cultured with 30 µM isopropyl-ß-D-thiogalactopyranoside at 25 °C for 5 h. GST-fusion proteins expressed were purified by a glutathione-Sepharose column (Amersham Biosciences, Inc.) as described (Sanada et al. 2002). After concentration by Centricon YM-30 concentrator (Amicon), the protein content was estimated by densitometry of SDS-PAGE gel bands in comparison with those of serial dilutions of BSA standards in the same gel. Phosphorylated form of bacterially expressed myc-MAPK was prepared as described (Sanada et al. 2002).

Protein kinase assay

Recombinant myc-MAPK or P-myc-MAPK (0.3 µg) was incubated with 1.8 µg of GST-mCRY, its mutant or GST alone in 40 µL of a kinase buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl, 20 mM MgCl2, 50 µM Na3VO4, 0.003% (w/v) Brij 35; pH 7.8) at 30 °C for 20 min in the presence of 400 µM[{gamma}-32P]ATP (200 Bq/pmol). The reaction mixture was then subjected to SDS-PAGE, and the phosphorylation levels of GST-mCRYs and their mutants were estimated by autoradiography of the gel.

Cell culture, transfection, immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence

COS7 cells were maintained in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10% foetal calf serum in wells of 6-well plates. Cells were transiently transfected using LipofectAMINE PLUS (Invitrogen) with a total of 1.4 µg of various protein expression plasmids. Cells were then cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% foetal calf serum for 36 h, washed with ice-cold phosphate-buffered saline, and solubilized for 1 h on ice in 300 µL of a lysis buffer (20 mM HEPES-NaOH, 2 mM MgCl2, 2 mM EGTA, 1 mM benzamidine, 4 µg/mL leupeptin, 4 µg/mL aprotinin, 50 mM NaF, 1% (w/v) Triton X-100, and 1 mM Na3VO4; pH 7.4 at 4 °C). Cell extracts were then centrifuged for 30 min at 15 000 x g. The supernatant (220 µg proteins) was precleared by incubation with 15 µL of Protein G-Sepharose (Amersham Biosciences, Inc.) for 30 min and then incubated with 4 µg of anti-FLAG antibody (clone M2, Sigma) at 4 °C for 3 h, followed by incubation with 15 µL of Protein G-Sepharose for 1 h. The beads were washed seven times with the lysis buffer containing 1% (w/v) sodium deoxycholate, mixed with SDS-PAGE sample solution, boiled, and centrifuged. The supernatant was then subjected to immunoblotting with anti-FLAG antibody (0.2 µg/mL), anti-myc antibody (clone 9E10, 0.2 µg/mL, SantaCruz Biotechnology), or anti-phospho-MAPK antibody (0.1 µg/mL, New England Biolab) as described (Sanada et al. 2000).

For immunofluorescence, COS7 cells were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde in PBS for 10 min, permeabilized with 0.2% Triton X-100 in PBS for 10 min, and then blocked in 3% bovine serum albumin and 0.2% Triton X-100 in PBS (blocking solution) for 30 min. After that, the cells were incubated with anti-myc antibody (clone 9E10, 1 : 200, SantaCruz Biotechnology) in the blocking solution for 1 h. After three washes with PBS, the cells were incubated with Alexa 488-conjugated anti-mouse IgG (1 : 1000; Molecular probe) in the blocking solution, followed by nuclear staining with DAPI.

Phosphopeptide analysis by reversed-phase HPLC and MALDI-TOF/MS

GST-mCRY1 or GST-mCRY2 (18 µg each) was incubated at 30 °C for 2 h with P-myc-MAPK (1.8 µg) in 40 µL of the kinase buffer containing 1 mM ATP. GST-mCRY proteins were then separated by SDS-PAGE, and transferred to a polyvinylidene difluoride membrane. The blot containing GST-mCRY protein band was excised, washed five times with water, and incubated for blocking with 100 mM acetic acid containing 0.5% (w/v) polyvinylpyrrolidone-40 at 37 °C for 1 h. After washing five times with water, the blot was incubated with 2.0 µg of TPCK-treated trypsin at 37 °C for 18 h in 200 µL of 50 mM Tris buffer (pH 8.0) containing 10 mM CaCl2 and 10% (w/v) acetonitrile. The mixture was further supplemented with 2.0 µg TPCK-treated trypsin, incubated for additional 8 h, and subjected to reversed-phase HPLC (Sanada et al. 1994). All the fragments eluted from the column were analysed by MALDI-TOF/MS. Voyager MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer (PerSeptive Biosystems) was equipped with a delayed extraction ion source and operated in the linear mode. For sequence analysis of phosphopeptides, the HPLC-purified peptide was lyophilized, dissolved in 10 µL of 10% (w/v) HCl, incubated at 50 °C for 6 h and subjected to MALDI-TOF/MS analysis (Sanada et al. 2002).

Transcription assay

HEK293EBNA cells cultured in wells of 6-well plates were transiently transfected using LipofectAMINE PLUS (Invitrogen) with various combinations of plasmids expressing mouse BMAL1, CLOCK and CRY, together with 50 ng of firefly luciferase reporter plasmid and 0.5 ng of pRL-CMV (Renilla) luciferase plasmid (Promega) as an internal control. The firefly luciferase reporter plasmid was constructed as described (Okano et al. 2001). In brief, oligonucleotides, CACGTG E-box element and its flanking sequences within the promoter/enhancer region of mouse vasopressin gene were synthesized, and the three copies linked in tandem were inserted into pGL3-Promoter plasmid (Promega). Total amount of DNA applied per well was adjusted to 1.4 µg by adding pCMV-Tag3B empty plasmid. The cell extract was prepared 24 h after the transfection, and subjected to a dual-luciferase assay by luminometry (Promega) according to the manufacturer's protocol. The values were normalized to transfection efficiency with the aid of the internal control value in each cell culture.

Generation of antibody specific to phospho-Ser247 of mCRY1 and phospho-Ser265 of mCRY2

To generate polyclonal antibody (anti-pS247/265-mCRYs) which recognizes both Ser247-phosphorylated mCRY1 and Ser265-phosphorylated mCRY2, a synthetic phospho-peptide [CNSLLAS(PO4)SPTGLS] corresponding to the amino acids 241–253 of mCRY1 and 259–271 of mCRY2 was conjugated to keyhole limpet haemocyanin. After three cycles of immunization with the conjugate, the New Zealand white rabbits were bled, and the serum was subjected to an affinity-purification column of the phospho-peptide-conjugated EAH Sepharose (Amersham Biosciences, Inc.). The antibody was further purified by passing through a non-phospho-peptide[CNSLLASSPTGLS]-coupled EAH Sepharose column. The antibody thus purified was termed anti-pS247/265-mCRYs, and it was used at 1 : 200 dilution for immunoblotting.


    Acknowledgements
 
We thank Dr Masato Ogata for human ERK2 plasmid, Dr Charles J. Weitz for mouse Clock plasmid, and Dr Yoshiaki Fujii-Kuriyama for mouse BMAL1 plasmid. We are also thankful to Dr Toshiyuki Okano and Momoko Sasaki for constructing several expression plasmids used in the transcription assay, and to all the members of the Fukada lab for stimulating discussions. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Y. H. was supported by Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists.


    Footnotes
 
Communicated by: Tadashi Yamamoto

Present address: aDepartment of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Back

bDivision of Neuroscience, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA Back

{dagger}These authors contributed equally to this work. Back

* Correspondence: E-mail: sfukada{at}mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp


    References
 Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Results
 Discussion
 Experimental procedures
 References
 
Ahmad, M., Jorillo, J.A., Smimova, O. & Cashmore, A.R. (1998) The CRY1 blue light photoreceptor of Arabidopsis interects with phytochrome A in vitro. Mol. Cell 1, 939–948.[CrossRef][Medline]

Akashi, M. & Nishida, E. (2000) Involvement of the MAP kinase cascade in resetting of the mammalian circadian clock. Genes Dev. 14, 645–649.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Butcher, G.Q., Boyoung, L. & Obrietan, K. (2003) Temporal regulation of light-induced extracellular signal-regulated kinase activation in the suprachiasmatic nucleus. J. Neurophys. 90, 3854–3863.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Butcher, G.Q., Dziema, H., Collamore, M., Burgoon, P.W. & Obrietan, K. (2002) The p42/44 MAP kinase pathway couples photic input to circadian clock entrainment. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 29519–29525.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Cashmore, A.R., Jarillo, J.A., Wu, Y.J. & Liu, D. (1999) Cryptochrome: blue light receptors for plants and animals. Science 284, 760–765.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Davis, R.J. (1993) The mitogen-activated protein kinase signal transduction pathway. J. Biol. Chem. 268, 14553–14556.[Free Full Text]

Dunlap, J.C. (1999) Molecular bases for circadian clock. Cell 96, 271–290.[CrossRef][Medline]

Eide, E.J., Vielhaber, E.L., Hinz, W.A. & Virshup, D.M. (2002) The Circadian regulatory proteins BMAL1 and Cryptochromes are substrates of casein kinase I{varepsilon} (CKI{varepsilon}). J. Biol. Chem. 19, 17248–17254.

Froy, O., Chang, D.C. & Reppert, S.M. (2002) Redox potential: diffential roles in dCRY and mCRY1 functions. Curr. Biol. 12, 147–152.[CrossRef][Medline]

Gekakis, N., Staknis, D., Nguyen, H.B., et al. (1998) Role of the CLOCK protein in the mammalian circadian mechanism. Science 280, 1564–1569.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Harada, Y., Sanada, K. & Fukada, Y. (2000) Circadian activation of bullfrog retinal MAP kinase associates with oscillator function. J. Biol. Chem. 275, 37078–37085.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Hayashi, Y., Sanada, K. & Fukada, Y. (2001) Circadian and photic regulation of MAP kinase by Ras- and phosphatase-dependent pathways in the chick pineal gland. FEBS Lett. 491, 71–75.[CrossRef][Medline]

Hayashi, Y., Sanada, K., Hirota, T., Shimizu, F. & Fukada, Y. (2003) Involvement of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase in oscillation of chick pineal circadian clock. J. Biol. Chem. 278, 25166–25171.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

van der Horst, G.T.J., Muijtjens, M., Eker, A.P.M., et al. (1999) Mammalian Cry1 and Cry2 are essential for maintenance of circadian rhythms. Nature 398, 627–630.[CrossRef][Medline]

Kloss, B., Price, J.P., Saez, L., Blau, J., et al. (1998) The Drosophila clock gene double-time encodes a protein closely related to human casein kinase I{varepsilon}. Cell 94, 97–107.[CrossRef][Medline]

Ko, G.Y.-P., Ko, M.H. & Dryer, S.E. (2001) Circadian regulation of cGMP-gated cationic channels of chick retinal cones: Erk MAP kinase and Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II. Neuron 29, 255–266.[CrossRef][Medline]

Kobayashi, Y., Ishikawa, T., Hirayama, J., et al. (2001) Molecular analysis of zebrafish photolyase/cryptochrome family: two types of cryptochromes present in zebrafish. Genes Cells 5, 725–738.

Kobayashi, K., Kanno, S., Smit, B., van der Horst, G.T.J., Takao, M. & Yasui, A. (1998) Characterization of photolyase/blue-light photoreceptor homologues in mouse and human cells. Nucl. Acids Res. 26, 5086–5092.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Kume, K., Zylka, M.J., Sriram, S., et al. (1999) mCRY1 and mCRY2 are essential components of the negative limb of the circadian clock feedback loop. Cell 98, 193–205.[CrossRef][Medline]

Lee, C., Etchegaray, J.P., Cagampang, F.R.A., Loudon, A.S.I. & Reppert, S.M. (2001) Posttranslational mechanisms regulate the mammalian clock. Cell 107, 855–867.[CrossRef][Medline]

Lee, H.S., Nelms, J.L., Nguyen, M., Silver, R. & Lehman, M.N. (2003) The eye is necessary for a circadian rhythm in the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Nature Neurosci. 6, 111–112.[CrossRef][Medline]

Lowrey, P.L., Shimomura, K., Antoch, M.P., et al. (2000) Positional syntenic cloning and functional characterization of the mammalian circadian mutation. Tau. Sci. 288, 483–491.

Miyamoto, Y. & Sancar, A. (1998) Vitamine B2-based blue-light photoreceptors in the retinohypothalamic tract as the photoreactive pigments for setting the circadian clock in mammals. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95, 6097–6102.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Nakaya, M., Sanada, K. & Fukada, Y. (2003) Spatial and temporal regulation of MAPK phosphorylation in the mouse suprachiasmatic nucleus. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commune. 305, 494–501.

Obrietan, K., Impey, S. & Storm, D.R. (1998) Light and circadian rhythmicity regulate MAP kinase activation in the suprachiasmatic nuclei. Nature Neurosci. 1, 693–700.[CrossRef][Medline]

Okano, T., Yamamoto, K., Okano, K., et al. (2001) Chicken pineal clock genes: implication of BMAL2 as a bidirectional regulator in circadian clock oscillation. Genes Cells 6, 825–836.[Abstract]

Park, H.W., Kim, S.T., Sancer, A. & Daisenhofer, J. (1995) Crystal structure of DNA photolyase from Escherichia coli. Science 268, 1866–1872.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Price, J.L., Blau, J., Rothenfluh, A., Abodeely, M., Kloss, B. & Young, M.W. (1998) Double-time is a novel Drosophila clock gene that regulates PERIOD protein accumulation. Cell 94, 83–95.[CrossRef][Medline]

Reppert, S.M. & Weaver, D.R. (2002) Coordination of circadian timing in mammals. Nature 418, 935–941.[CrossRef][Medline]

Sanada, K., Hayashi, Y., Harada, Y., Okano, T. & Fukada, Y. (2000) Role of circadian activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase in chick pineal clock oscillation. J. Neurosci. 20, 986–991.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Sanada, K., Kokame, K., Takao, T., Shimonishi, Y., Yoshizawa, T. & Fukada, Y. (1994) Role of heterogenous N-terminal acylation of recoverin in rhodopsin phosphorylation. J. Biol. Chem. 270, 15459–15462.

Sanada, K., Okano, T. & Fukada, Y. (2002) Mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylates and negatively regulates basic helix-loop-helix-PAS transcription factor BMAL1. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 267–271.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Somers, D.E., Delvin, P.E. & Kay, S.A. (1998) Phytochromes and cryptochromes in the entrainment of the Arabidopsis circadian clock. Science 282, 1488–1490.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Stanewsky, R., Kaneko, M., Emery, P., et al. (1998) The cryb mutation identifies cryptochrome as a circadian photoreceptor in Drosophila. Cell 95, 681–692.[CrossRef][Medline]

Takano, A., Shimizu, K., Kani, S., Buijs, R.M., Okada, M. & Nagai, K. (2000) Cloning and characterization of rat casein kinase I{varepsilon}. FEBS Lett. 477, 106–112.[CrossRef][Medline]

Todo, T. (1999) Functional diversity of the DNA photolyase/blue-light receptor family. Mutat. Res. 434, 89–97.[Medline]

Todo, T., Ryo, H., Yamamoto, K., et al. (1996) Similarity among the Drosophila (6–4) photolyase, a human photolyase homolog, and the DNA photolyase-blue-light photoreceptor family. Science 272, 109–112.[Abstract]

Vielhaber, E., Eide, E., Rivers, A., Gao, Z. & Virshup, D.M. (2000) Nuclear entry of the circadian regulator mPER1 is controlled by mammalian casein kinase I{varepsilon}. Mol. Cell. Biol. 20, 4888–4899.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Williams, J.A., Su, H.S., Bernards, A., Field, J. & Sehgal, A. (2001) A circadian output in drosophila mediated by neurofibromatosis-1 and Ras/MAPK. Science 293, 2251–2256.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Yamamoto, K., Okano, T. & Fukada, Y. (2001) Chicken CRY genes: light-dependent up-regulation of cCRY1 and cCRY2 transcripts. Neurosci. Lett. 313, 13–16.[CrossRef][Medline]

Zhu, H. & Green, C.B. (2001a) Three cryptochromes are rhythmically expressed in Xenopus laevis retinal photoreceptors. Mol. Vis. 7, 210–215.[Medline]

Zhu, H. & Green, C.B. (2001b) A putative flavin electron transport pathway is differentially utilized in Xenopus CRY1 and CRY2. Curr. Biol. 11, 1945–1949.[CrossRef][Medline]

Received: 23 March 2004
Accepted: 17 May 2004




This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
K. Hitomi, L. DiTacchio, A. S. Arvai, J. Yamamoto, S.-T. Kim, T. Todo, J. A. Tainer, S. Iwai, S. Panda, and E. D. Getzoff
Functional motifs in the (6-4) photolyase crystal structure make a comparative framework for DNA repair photolyases and clock cryptochromes
PNAS, April 28, 2009; 106(17): 6962 - 6967.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Home page
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
X. Yu, D. Shalitin, X. Liu, M. Maymon, J. Klejnot, H. Yang, J. Lopez, X. Zhao, K. T. Bendehakkalu, and C. Lin
Derepression of the NC80 motif is critical for the photoactivation of Arabidopsis CRY2
PNAS, April 24, 2007; 104(17): 7289 - 7294.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Home page
Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant BiolHome page
F. Tamanini, I. Chaves, M. I. Bajek, and G. T. J. van der Horst
Structure Function Analysis of Mammalian Cryptochromes
Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol, January 1, 2007; 72(0): 133 - 139.
[Abstract] [PDF]


Home page
Genome ResHome page
E. B. Rubin, Y. Shemesh, M. Cohen, S. Elgavish, H. M. Robertson, and G. Bloch
Molecular and phylogenetic analyses reveal mammalian-like clockwork in the honey bee (Apis mellifera) and shed new light on the molecular evolution of the circadian clock
Genome Res., November 1, 2006; 16(11): 1352 - 1365.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Home page
Mol. Cell. Biol.Home page
I. Chaves, K. Yagita, S. Barnhoorn, H. Okamura, G. T. J. van der Horst, and F. Tamanini
Functional Evolution of the Photolyase/Cryptochrome Protein Family: Importance of the C Terminus of Mammalian CRY1 for Circadian Core Oscillator Performance
Mol. Cell. Biol., March 1, 2006; 26(5): 1743 - 1753.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Home page
J. Biol. Chem.Home page
Y. Harada, M. Sakai, N. Kurabayashi, T. Hirota, and Y. Fukada
Ser-557-phosphorylated mCRY2 Is Degraded upon Synergistic Phosphorylation by Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3{beta}
J. Biol. Chem., September 9, 2005; 280(36): 31714 - 31721.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Home page
J Biol RhythmsHome page
J. Dey, A.-J. F. Carr, F. R. A. Cagampang, A. S. Semikhodskii, A. S. I. Loudon, M. H. Hastings, and E. S. Maywood
The tau Mutation in the Syrian Hamster Differentially Reprograms the Circadian Clock in the SCN and Peripheral Tissues
J Biol Rhythms, April 1, 2005; 20(2): 99 - 110.
[Abstract] [PDF]


This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sanada, K.
Right arrow Articles by Fukada, Y.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sanada, K.
Right arrow Articles by Fukada, Y.


HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE ADVANCED SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS