Disease relevance of cry

• The cry(b) mutation reduces the light sensitivity of the fly's clock, yet locomotor activity rhythms in constant darkness or light-dark cycles are relatively normal, because the rhodopsins compensate for the lack of cryptochrome function [1].

Psychiatry related information on cry

• However, we have shown that CRYPTOCHROME (CRY) has a light-independent function in the oscillator that controls olfaction rhythms, suggesting that CRY may function within the oscillator mechanism itself as it does in mammals [2].

High impact information on cry

• The cryb mutation identifies cryptochrome as a circadian photoreceptor in Drosophila [3].
• CRY, a Drosophila clock and light-regulated cryptochrome, is a major contributor to circadian rhythm resetting and photosensitivity [4].
• Effects of d5-HT1B are synergistic with a mutation in the circadian photoreceptor cryptochrome (CRY) and are mediated by SHAGGY (SGG), Drosophila glycogen synthase kinase 3beta (GSK3beta), which phosphorylates TIM [5].
• The blue light photoreceptor encoding cryptochrome (cry) gene is also a target for VRI repression, suggesting a broader role for VRI in the rhythmic repression of output genes that cycle in phase with Clk [6].
• Two basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) PAS (PER-ARNT-SIM) transcription factors, CLOCK and BMAL1, form the positive elements of the system and drive transcription of three Period and two Cryptochrome genes [7].

Biological context of cry

• The one cryptochrome mutant known (cryb) harbors an amino-acid substitution in the blue-light absorbing protein encoded by this gene [8].
• The DCry gene is located in region 91F of the third chromosome, an interval that does not contain other genes required for circadian rhythmicity [9].
• Whether cryptochrome and visual transduction pathways play a role in entrainment of noninnervated, directly photosensitive peripheral clocks is not known and the subject of this study [10].

Anatomical context of cry

• The authors monitored levels of the clock protein TIM in the lateral neurons (LNs) of larval brains and in the renal Malpighian tubules (MTs) of flies mutant for the cryptochrome gene (cry(b)) and in mutants that lack signaling from the visual photopigments (norpA(P41)) [10].

Other interactions of cry

• In the adult fly's brain, the PDF neurons have also been examined in double-labelled preparations made with a second antibody directed against the product of one of several clock genes: period (per), timeless (tim), or cryptochrome (cry) [11].
• The authors show that the relevant clock can be entrained by two light input pathways, one involving the phospholipase C encoded by the norpA gene, the other mediated by the blue-light receptor cryptochrome [12].
• We now have identified and characterized a candidate blue light photoreceptor gene in Drosophila (DCry) that is homologous to the cryptochrome (Cry) genes of mammals and plants [9].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of cry

• Evidence for a putative antennal clock in Mamestra brassicae: molecular cloning and characterization of two clock genes--period and cryptochrome-- in antennae [13].
• Expression of JET along with the circadian photoreceptor cryptochrome (CRY) in cultured S2R cells confers light-dependent degradation onto TIM, thereby reconstituting the acute response + of the circadian clock to light in a cell culture system [14].

References