Monday, October 31, 2016

Tick tock! Screening the clock.

Agrawal P, Hardin PE. An RNAi Screen to Identify Protein Phosphatases that Function Within the Drosophila Circadian Clock. G3 (Bethesda). 2016 Oct 26. PMID: 27784754.

From the abstract: "Circadian clocks in eukaryotes keep time via cell-autonomous transcriptional feedback loops. ... To identify phosphatases that play a role in the clock, we screened clock cell-specific RNA interference (RNAi) knockdowns of all annotated protein phosphatases and protein phosphatase regulators in Drosophila for altered activity rhythms. ... Additional RNAi lines, transposon inserts, overexpression and loss-of-function mutants were tested to independently confirm these RNAi phenotypes. ... 15 viable protein phosphatases remain for future studies. These candidates are expected to reveal novel features of the circadian timekeeping mechanism in Drosophila that are likely to be conserved in all animals including humans."

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