Remodeling the clock: coactivators and signal transduction in the circadian clockworks.

Most organisms on earth such as cyanobacteria, fungi, plants, insects, animals, and humans synchronize their physiological and behavioral activities with the environmental cycles of day and night. Significant progress has been made in unraveling the genetic components that constitute a molecular circadian clock, which facilitates the temporal control of physiology and behavior. Clock genes assemble interlocked transcriptional/translational feedback loops that underlie the circadian oscillations. Recent investigations revealed that posttranslational regulation of clock proteins is crucial for functioning of the molecular oscillator and for precise temporal control of circadian transcription. This review provides an overview of the homologous clockworks in Drosophila and mammals, with a special focus on recent insights in the posttranslational regulation of clock proteins as well as the role of coactivators, repressors, and signal transduction for circadian controlled genome-wide transcription. The emerging mechanisms of clock gene regulation provide an understanding of the temporal control of transcription in general and the circadian orchestration of physiology and behavior in particular.