Expt. B; Daily Rhythm in Expression of >600 Genes in the Rodent Pineal Gland: Dominant Role of Adrenergic/cAMP Signaling

Biological processes are optimized by circadian and circannual biological timing systems. In vertebrates, the pineal gland plays an essential role in these systems by converting time into a hormonal signal, melatonin; in all vertebrates, circulating melatonin is elevated at night, independent of lifestyle. We have analyzed the rat pineal transcriptome at mid-day and mid-night to identify genes that exhibit night/day changes in expression. Keywords: Time course (2 points) Rat pineal glands were obtained at mid-day and mid-night for RNA extraction and hybridization to Affymetrix microarrays. Triplicates of pooled pineal glands were analyzed at each timepoint. A similar set of samples was taken from a transgenic rat line (DN-Fra-2; Smith et al. (2001) Mol. Cell. Biol. 21, 3704-3713).