Shinsuke Kutsuna

Cyanobacteria are the simplest organisms known to have a circadian clock. A circadian clock gene cluster kaiABC was cloned from the cyanobacterium Synechococcus. Nineteen clock mutations were mapped to the three kai genes. Promoter activities upstream of the kaiA and kaiB genes showed circadian rhythms of expression, and both kaiA and kaiBC messenger RNAs displayed circadian cycling. Inactivation of any single kai gene abolished these rhythms and reduced kaiBC-promoter activity. Continuous kaiC overexpression repressed the kaiBC promoter, whereas kaiA overexpression enhanced it. Temporal kaiC overexpression reset the phase of the rhythms. Thus, a negative feedback control of kaiC expression by KaiC generates a circadian oscillation in cyanobacteria, and KaiA sustains the oscillation by enhancing kaiC expression.

A diverse set of circadian clock mutants was isolated in a cyanobacterial strain that carries a bacterial luciferase reporter gene attached to a clock-controlled promoter. Among 150,000 clones of chemically mutagenized bioluminescent cells, 12 mutants were isolated that exhibit a broad spectrum of periods (between 16 and 60 hours), and 5 mutants were found that show a variety of unusual patterns, including arrhythmia. These mutations appear to be clock-specific. Moreover, it was demonstrated that in this cyanobacterium it is possible to clone mutant genes by complementation, which provides a means to genetically dissect the circadian mechanism.

A kaiABC clock gene cluster was previously identified from cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, and the feedback regulation of kai genes was proposed as the core mechanism generating circadian oscillation. In this study, we confirmed that the Kai-based oscillator is the dominant circadian oscillator functioning in cyanobacteria. We probed the nature of this regulation and found that excess KaiC represses not only kaiBC but also the rhythmic components of all genes in the genome. This result strongly suggests that the KaiC protein primarily coordinates genomewide gene expression, including its own expression. We also found that a promoter derived from E. coli is feedback controlled by KaiC and restores the complete circadian rhythm in kaiBC-inactivated arrhythmic mutants, provided it can express kaiB and kaiC genes at an appropriate level. Unlike eukaryotic models, specific regulation of the kaiBC promoter is not essential for cyanobacterial circadian oscillations.

We cloned the pS1K1 plasmid in the process of apparently "complementing" a circadian clock mutant of cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942, SP22, which has a 22-h period (T. Kondo, N. F. Tsinoremas, S. S. Golden, C. H. Johnson, S. Kutsuna, and M. Ishiura, Science 266:1233-1236, 1994). Sequence analysis revealed that SP22 did not have a mutation in the genomic DNA segment carried on pS1K1, and the sp22 mutation was later found in a recently cloned new clock gene, kaiC. Therefore, the period-extender gene pex that was carried on pS1K1 was a suppressor gene for the sp22 mutation. The pex gene encoded a protein of 148 amino acid residues. No meaningful homologs were found in DNA or protein databases including the Synechocystis genome database. The pex gene was transcribed from 129 and 164 bp upstream of the translation initiation codon as 0.6-kb transcripts. The Pex protein was detected as a fusion protein with a molecular mass of 15 kDa by the epitope tag fusion method using a c-Myc epitope tag. Disruption of the pex gene in wild-type cells shortened the period of the rhythms by 1 h, although it did not affect other properties of the rhythms, whereas its overexpression extended the period by 3 h with a concomitant reduction in the amplitude of the rhythms. In various clock mutants examined, overexpression caused arrhythmicity. Thus, Pex is likely to function as a modifier of the circadian clock in Synechococcus.

In the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942, a circadian clock-related gene, pex, was identified as the gene prolonging the period of the clock. A PadR domain, which is a newly classified transcription factor domain, and the X-ray crystal structure of the Pex protein suggest a role for Pex in transcriptional regulation in the circadian system. However, the regulatory target of the Pex protein is unknown. To determine the role of Pex, we monitored bioluminescence rhythms that reported the expression activity of the kaiA gene or the kaiBC operon in pex deficiency, pex constitutive expression, and the wild-type genotype. The expression of kaiA in the pex-deficient or constitutive expression genotype was 7 or 1/7 times that of the wild type, respectively, suggesting that kaiA is the target of negative regulation by Pex. In contrast, the expression of the kaiBC gene in the two pex-related genotypes was the same as that in the wild type, suggesting that Pex specifically regulates kaiA expression. We used primer extension analysis to map the transcription start site for the kaiA gene 66 bp upstream of the translation start codon. Mapping with deletion and base pair substitution of the kaiA upstream region revealed that a 5-bp sequence in this region was essential for the regulation of kaiA. The repression or constitutive expression of the kaiA transgene caused the prolongation or shortening of the circadian period, respectively, suggesting that the Pex protein changes the period via the negative regulation of kaiA.