Drosophila CRY Entrains Clocks in Body Tissues to Light and Maintains Passive Membrane Properties in a Non-clock Body Tissue Independent of Light

Aug 8, 2017Current biology : CB

Fruit Fly Light-Sensing Protein Sets Body Tissue Clocks and Keeps Cell Membranes Stable in a Body Tissue Without a Clock, Even Without Light

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Abstract

CRY protein is detected in peripheral tissues of Drosophila, including the Malpighian tubules and larval salivary glands.

CRY is involved in light-dependent degradation of TIM protein in clock-containing tissues.
In larval salivary glands, CRY prevents a decrease in membrane input resistance independently of light.
The function of CRY in maintaining high input resistance requires specific potassium channel subunits: Hyperkinetic, Shaker, and ether-a-go-go.
This study reveals previously uncharacterized CRY expression outside of the brain and eyes in Drosophila.

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Circadian (∼24 hr) clocks regulate daily rhythms in physiology, metabolism, and behavior via cell-autonomous transcriptional feedback loops. In Drosophila, the blue-light photoreceptor CRYPTOCHROME (CRY) synchronizes these feedback loops to light:dark cycles by binding to and degrading TIMELESS (TIM) protein. CRY also acts independently of TIM in Drosophila to alter potassium channel conductance in arousal neurons after light exposure, and in many animals CRY acts independently of light to repress rhythmic transcription. CRY expression has been characterized in the Drosophila brain and eyes, but not in peripheral clock and non-clock tissues in the body. To investigate CRY expression and function in body tissues, we generated a GFP-tagged-cry transgene that rescues light-induced behavioral phase resetting in crymutant flies and sensitively reports GFP-CRY expression. In bodies, CRY is detected in clock-containing tissues including Malpighian tubules, where it mediates both light-dependent TIM degradation and clock function. In larval salivary glands, which lack clock function but are amenable to electrophysiological recording, CRY prevents membrane input resistance from falling to low levels in a light-independent manner. The ability of CRY to maintain high input resistance in these non-excitable cells also requires the Kchannel subunits Hyperkinetic, Shaker, and ether-a-go-go. These findings for the first time define CRY expression in Drosophila peripheral tissues and reveal that CRY acts together with Kchannels to maintain passive membrane properties in a non-clock-containing peripheral tissue independent of light. 3 + +

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Drosophila CRY Entrains Clocks in Body Tissues to Light and Maintains Passive Membrane Properties in a Non-clock Body Tissue Independent of Light

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