Estimation methods for human circadian phase by use of peripheral tissues.

Almost all living organisms, including humans, exhibit diurnal rhythms of physiology and behavior, which are driven by the circadian clock. Many studies have found that chronic misalignment between circadian and environmental/social rhythms carries a significant risk of various disorders, including sleep disorders, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. However, irregular sleep-wake cycles and circadian maladjustment often cause 'social jet lag', which is minor but chronic jet-lag in our daily lives. Establishment of objective and convenient circadian-phase estimation methods in the clinical setting would therefore greatly contribute not only to resolving this global health problem but also to developing chronomedicine, a clinical approach for optimizing the time of day of treatments. Traditional melatonin-based methods have limitations with respect to circadian-phase evaluation; however, estimation methods based on clock gene expression may be able to compensate for these limitations. As a representative application of circadian-phase estimation based on clock gene expression, our method of using hair follicle cells may aid in the rapid clinical detection of circadian-related sleep problems, especially circadian rhythm sleep disorders that are masked because of forced adaptation to social time schedules.