Molecular and Cellular Bases for Circadian Clocks

Dear Colleagues,

Circadian rhythms have been observed for centruries but it is only in the mid 80’ s that the first clock gene was discovered by Hall, Rosbash and Young who received the 2017 Nobel prize of Physiology and Medecine for this pioneer work. Since, the field of circadian biology has expanded tremendously and irreversibly led to the notion that an intact circadian timing system is essential for health. Consequently, circadian disruption and misalignment are being increasingly recognized as risk factors for the development of major pathologies including sleep and mood disorders, cardio-metabolic diseases and cancer. One major milestones in the recent history of circadian research has been the somewhat provocative finding from the Steve Kay’s and Ueli Schibler’s laboratories demonstrating clock gene expression outside the brain and in cultured cells. The concept of peripheral circadian clock was born and importantly the circadian core clock mechanism was emerging as a basic cellular process. Twenty years later and after an avalanche of cutting edge biochemical and genetics studies, nobody will question in 2020 the assumption that virtually all cells harbor a circadian clock machinery consisting in a gene and protein network whose systems level properties confer the unique ability to the cell to generate 24 h oscillations. This complex oscillatory mechanism is tightly and bi-directionally connected to basic and specific cellular processes including, metabolism, mitochondrial dynamics, signaling, transport, autophagy, apoptosis, unfolding protein and ER stress responses, cell cycle, adipogenesis, drug detoxification, lymphocyte lineage specification, etc. This special issue of Cells will provide a comprehensive update of our current understanding of how circadian oscillators work and temporally coordinate key processes at the cellular scale in health and disease.

We are looking forward to your contributions to this Special Issue.

Prof. Franck Delaunay
Guest Editor

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• Circadian clock
• Clock gene
• Cell metabolism
• Cell cycle
• Stress signaling
• Differentiation