Development of preventive strategy against oncogenesis by strengthening circadian clock function

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26670317
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Epidemiology and preventive medicine
• Research Institution: Kyushu University
• Principal Investigator: Koyanagi Satoru 九州大学, 薬学研究科(研究院), 准教授 (60330932)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 時計遺伝子 / 発がん

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Although disruption of circadian clock machinery is thought to increase the risk of cancer development, there is no preventive strategy against oncogenesis which is caused by circadian clock disruption. Circadian rhythms in physiological function are generated by a molecular oscillator driven by transcriptional-translational feedback loop consisting of negative and positive regulators. Genetic ablation of either negative or positive transcriptional regulators of the circadian clock leads to disrupted rhythms in physiological functions, but we found that negative and positive transcriptional regulators of circadian feedback loop had different roles in oncogene-induced neoplastic transformation. Our findings suggest that appreciation of the mechanism for circadian clock disruption is important for prevention of cancer development.

Free Research Field

時間生物学