Clock regulation of metabolites reveals coupling between transcription and metabolism

The circadian clock is intricately connected with metabolism, however the precise details of these connections are incomplete. Here we used high temporal resolution metabolite profiling to determine circadian regulation of mouse liver and cell autonomous metabolism. In mouse liver, we found ~50% of metabolites were circadian, with strong enrichment of the nucleotide, amino acid, and methylation pathways. In U2OS cells, 27% of metabolites were circadian, including amino acids and NAD biosynthesis, also clock controlled in liver. To assess whether cell autonomous metabolite rhythms were clock-dependent, we used RNAi to perturb Bmal1, Cry1, and Cry2. Bmal1 knockdown eliminated most metabolite rhythms, while Cry1 generally shortened and Cry2 lengthened rhythms. Surprisingly, we found Cry1 knockdown induced 8 hr rhythms in amino acid, methylation, and vitamin metabolites, decoupling metabolite and transcriptional rhythms. These results provide the first comprehensive views of circadian liver and cell autonomous metabolism.