The genetic and molecular dissection of a prototypic circadian system

A great deal is known about this archetypal circadian system, and it is likely that Neurospora will represent the first circadian system in which it will be possible to provide a complete description of the flow of information from the photoreceptor, through the components of oscillator, out to a terminal aspect of regulation. In Neurospora the strongest case has been made for there being a state variable of clock identified (Hall, 1995), it has now been shown that light resetting of the clock is mediated by the rapid light induction of the gene encoding this state variable, and a number of defined clock-regulated output genes have been identified, in two of which the clock-specific parts of the promoters have been localized. In addition to the importance of these factoids themselves, our efforts towards understanding of this system has allowed the development of tools and paradigms (e.g. Loros et al., 1989; Loros and Dunlap, 1991; Aronson et al., 1994a) that will help to pave the way for proving the identity of clock components in more complex systems, for understanding how clocks are regulated by entraining factors, and for showing how time information eventually is used to regulate the behaviors of clock cells, and of whole organisms.