Analysis of the mechanism by which tumor suppressor regulate the circadian rhythm

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25860178
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Environmental physiology(including physical medicine and nutritional physiology)
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: MIKI Takao 京都大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 助教 (30452345)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: がん抑制遺伝子 / 概日リズム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Accumulating epidemiological evidence suggests that cancer and the circadian clock have close interplay, although direct molecular evidence in mammalian systems remains scarce. The circadian clock is the daily oscillation of biological processes and believed to have close interplay with many fundamental cellular pathways including metabolism. Previous studies have shown that mice lacking Period 2 (Per2), a critical component of circadian clock, was cancer prone, suggesting that clock genes could be involved in tumor suppression and hence, PER2 and other tumor suppressors may function in an integrated network. We screened several tumor suppressors for their possible clock functions and identified two major tumor suppressors, p53 and PML. We also found that p53 and PML exert their clock functions by regulating Per2. Here, we expand our finding to other tumor suppressor and try to understand the direct connection between tumor suppressors and the circadian rhythm.

Free Research Field

分子腫瘍学