Price J L
Laboratory of Genetics, Rockefeller University, NY, NY 10021, USA.
Bioessays. 1995 Jul;17(7):583-6. doi: 10.1002/bies.950170703.
Genetic analysis is revealing molecular components of circadian rhythms. The gene products of the period gene in Drosophila and the frequency gene in Neurospora oscillate with a circadian rhythm. A recent paper (1) has shown that the PERIOD protein can undergo both intermolecular and intramolecular interactions in vitro. The effects of temperature and two period mutations on these molecular interactions were compared to the effects of the mutations and temperature on the in vivo period length of circadian rhythms. The results suggest that the molecular interactions may compete to maintain a rhythm with a constant period over a wide temperature range.
遗传分析正在揭示昼夜节律的分子组成部分。果蝇周期基因和粗糙脉孢菌频率基因的基因产物以昼夜节律振荡。最近的一篇论文（1）表明，周期蛋白在体外可发生分子间和分子内相互作用。将温度和两个周期突变对这些分子相互作用的影响与突变和温度对昼夜节律体内周期长度的影响进行了比较。结果表明，在较宽的温度范围内，分子相互作用可能相互竞争以维持恒定周期的节律。
