Caenorhabditis elegans opens up new insights into circadian clock mechanisms

The roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, is known to carry homologues of clock genes such as per (=period) and tim (=timeless), which constitute the core of the circadian clock in Drosophila and mammals: lin-42 and tim-1. Analyses using WormBase (C. elegans gene database) have identified with relatively high identity analogous of the clock genes recognized in Drosophila and mammals, with the notable exception of cry (=cryptochrome), which is lacking in C. elegans. All of these C. elegans cognates of the clock genes appear to belong to members of the PAS-superfamily and to participate in development or responsiveness to the environment but apparently are not involved in the C. elegans circadian clock. Nevertheless, C. elegans exhibits convincing circadian rhythms in locomotor behavior in the adult stage and in resistance to hyperosmotic stress in starved larvae (L1) after hatching, indicating that it has a circadian clock with a core design entirely different from that of Drosophila and mammals. Here two possibilities are considered. First, the core of the C. elegans circadian clock includes transcriptional/translational feedback loops between genes and their protein products that are entirely different from those of Drosophila and mammals. Second, a more basic principle such as homeostasis governs the circadian cellular physiology, and was established primarily to minimize the accumulation of DNA damage in response to an environment cycling at 24 h intervals.