A Topological Cluster of Differentially Regulated Genes in Mice Lacking PER3.

Polymorphisms in the human circadian clock gene () are associated with a wide variety of phenotypes such as diurnal preference, delayed sleep phase disorder, sleep homeostasis, cognitive performance, bipolar disorder, type 2 diabetes, cardiac regulation, cancer, light sensitivity, hormone and cytokine secretion, and addiction. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these phenotypic associations remain unknown. knockout mice ( ) have phenotypes related to activity, sleep homeostasis, anhedonia, metabolism, and behavioral responses to light. Using a protocol that induces behavioral differences in response to light in wild type and mice, we compared genome-wide expression in the eye and hypothalamus in the two genotypes. Differentially expressed transcripts were related to inflammation, taste, olfactory and melatonin receptors, lipid metabolism, cell cycle, ubiquitination, and hormones, as well as receptors and channels related to sleep regulation. Differentially expressed transcripts in both tissues co-localized with on an ∼8Mbp region of distal chromosome 4. The most down-regulated transcript is , which is involved in adipocyte differentiation and may mediate altered body mass accumulation in mice. eQTL analysis with BXD mouse strains showed that the expression of some of these transcripts and also others co-localized at distal chromosome 4, is correlated with brain tissue expression levels of with a highly significant linkage to genetic variation in that region. These data identify a cluster of transcripts on mouse distal chromosome 4 that are co-regulated with and whose expression levels correlate with those of . This locus lies within a topologically associating domain island that contains many genes with functional links to several of the diverse non-circadian phenotypes associated with polymorphisms in human PER3.