生物钟研究中心学术报告
报告题目：The circadian clock: New lessons from fish
报告人：Prof. Nicholas S. Foulkes 德国海德堡大学
报告时间：2014年10月20日10:00 AM
报告地点：苏州大学独墅湖校区生科楼703楼五楼会议室
生于1963年，1984年获得英国牛津大学圣凯萨琳学院荣誉硕士学位，1989年获圣凯萨琳学院博士学位。1989-1994年在法国国家科学研究院分子与细胞基因生物研究所做博士后研究，1994-2000年任初级研究员。2000-2007年在德国Max-Planck研究所担任独立PI，同时2005年起也在法国斯特拉斯堡大学任教。2007年至今，在德国卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院以及海德堡大学担任教授。
报告摘要：
Fish have proven to be valuable models for studying the organization of the circadian timing system in vertebrates. In particular, the use of model species such as the zebrafish has enabled mechanistic studies of various aspects of clock function at the molecular genetic level.The fish pineal gland has received considerable attention since in addition to its endocrine function, it appears to serve as a central clock structure and it is directly photosensitive. Furthermore, the clocks in fish peripheral tissues and even fish cell lines are directly entrained by exposure to light. Interestingly, the time of feeding as well as temperature changes also serve as potent entraining signals for the fish circadian timing system. Thus fish offera unique opportunity for studying how multiple environmental signals are integrated to regulate the vertebrate circadian clock.
Teleosts represent the most diverse vertebrate group with some 20,000 to 30,000 species described to date which occupy a wide diversity of aquatic habitats. Recently, we have studied clocks in various species of cavefish. These extraordinary animals have evolved in cave environments, under extreme conditions of constant darkness, in some cases for millions of years. This has resulted in the evolution of so-called troglomorphic phenotypes including eye loss and complete body depigmentation. Do these animals that have evolved in complete isolation of the day night cycle still retain normal circadian clocks? In order to tackle this basic question, we are performing comparative studies involving zebrafish and blind cavefish. Our resultsprovideunexpected new insight not only into how clocks evolve but more generally into how the vertebrate circadian timing system senses light and feeding time.
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