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Updated: May 29, 2026
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Manipulation of Rhythmic Food Intake in Mice Using a Custom-Made Feeding System
Published on: December 16, 2022
Time-restricted feeding enhances cross-tissue temporal coordination of mitochondrial-associated transcripts
Dylan C Sarver1,2,3, Yaniv Maddahi1, Christopher S Colwell4
1Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Iscience
|May 28, 2026
Summary
Time-restricted feeding synchronizes mitochondrial gene expression across tissues. This nutrient timing strategy enhances metabolic coordination, revealing a previously unknown temporal organization of mitochondrial networks.
Area of Science:
- Metabolomics
- Chronobiology
- Molecular Biology
Background:
- Circadian rhythms regulate cellular functions, essential for health.
- Nutrient timing acts as a key cue for peripheral circadian clocks.
- Mitochondria display daily metabolic rhythms, but their transcriptional coordination is unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if time-restricted feeding (TRF) improves cross-tissue coordination of mitochondrial-associated transcripts (MATs).
Main Methods:
- Utilized a 22-tissue, 24-hour transcriptomic dataset from mice under ad libitum or TRF conditions.
- Applied correlation- and phase-based analyses to assess MAT expression alignment within and across tissues.
Main Results:
- TRF significantly enhanced cross-tissue coordination of MATs, nearly quadrupling the number of globally aligned genes.
- Coenzyme Q10 homolog B (Coq10b) was identified as the most rhythmically aligned gene across organs, serving as a marker for coordinated MAT expression.
Conclusions:
- Nutrient timing, specifically TRF, shapes the temporal organization of mitochondrial-associated gene networks.
- This study reveals a novel layer of metabolic regulation through coordinated mitochondrial gene expression across tissues.
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