The Journal of Neuroscience, January 15, 2003, 23(2):652-658
Intrinsic Role of Polysialylated Neural Cell Adhesion Molecule in
Photic Phase Resetting of the Mammalian Circadian Clock
Rebecca A.
Prosser1,
Urs
Rutishauser2,
Grace
Ungers2,
Lenka
Fedorkova3, and
J. David
Glass3
1 Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular
Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, 2 Program in Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics, Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10021, and
3 Department of Biological Sciences, Kent State University,
Kent, Ohio 44242
The suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), the location of the mammalian
circadian clock, are one of the few adult brain regions that express
the highly polysialylated form of neural cell adhesion molecule
(PSA-NCAM). A role for the polysialic acid (PSA) component of PSA-NCAM,
which is known to promote tissue plasticity, has been reported for
photic entrainment of circadian rhythmicity in vivo. The
in vivo results, however, do not discriminate between PSA acting upstream or downstream of the glutamatergic synapses that
convey photic information to the SCN. To address this key issue, we
exploited an in vitro rat brain slice preparation that retains robust circadian function. As in the intact SCN, PSA levels in
the isolated SCN are rhythmic, with higher levels during the early
subjective day and lower levels during subjective night. Importantly,
bath application of glutamate to SCN slices rapidly and transiently
increases PSA levels during both the subjective day and night.
Pretreating the slices with endoneuraminidase, which selectively
removes PSA from NCAM and thereby prevents this increase, abolishes
glutamate- and optic chiasm stimulation-induced phase delays of the SCN
circadian neuronal activity rhythm. These results support the
hypothesis that PSA expression in the SCN is controlled by both the
circadian clock and photic input to the clock and that expression of
PSA in the SCN is critical for photic-like phase shifts of the clock.
Together, these results establish that such actions of PSA are
manifested downstream from presynaptic retinohypothalamic terminals and
therefore are intrinsic to the SCN itself.
Key words:
circadian rhythms; suprachiasmatic nucleus; polysialic acid; NCAM; phase-shift; glutamate; endoneuraminidase
Copyright © 2003 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/03/232652-07$05.00/0