Cool clue to body clock's workings

A PROTEIN that becomes more abundant when temperatures fall could be the key to how our cells keep time.

The brain imposes small daily swings in body temperature to help ensure that the body follows its 24-hour clock. But the details of how cells fall into step are unclear.

J?rg Morf at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and his colleagues exposed mouse cells to cycling temperatures. They found that levels of a protein called CIRP, which is known to be activated when temperatures fall, cycled too. Then they found that CIRP binds to RNA regions associated with the production of certain proteins that help regulate the cell's internal clock. Levels of these proteins also vary with body temperature.

Blocking CIRP production reduced the variation in these proteins, suggesting it is essential to our body clock (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1217726).

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