User:Daniel Mietchen/Talks/MPI-ICE 2012/Workshop/Nicotiana attenuata clock

The Nicotiana attenuata clock is a biological clock found in Nicotiana attenuata.

Core circadian clocks have been found in the solanaceae plant Nicotiana attenuata. It includes NaLHY, NaTOC1 and NaZTL, also a non core component NaFKF1 . These homologue genes have a high phylogenetic resemblence with Arabidopsis thaliana genes, as with other species, which suggest a good conservation of the gene domains across Magnoliophyta species. Currently the CCA1 gene that resembles LHY gene has not been found in N. attenuata.

These genes expression time matches with those found in Arabidopsis thaliana and some other species were it has been identified. The early gene LHY peaks at dawn (Zeitgeber0 (ZT0)), which in a day with a neutral photoperiod (12hours light) will correspond to 06h. The genes TOC1 and ZTL are evening genes, but only TOC1 has a specific peak time expression at ZT12 (18h) which will correspond to dusk in a neutral photoperiod. In the case of ZTL did not show a circadian rhythm at the transcript level, this does not exclude the possibility of a rhythm at the protein level.

N. attenuata main clock components phylogenetic tree