Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
GoGreen Membership

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Sci. STKE, 23 October 2007
Vol. 2007, Issue 409, p. tw388
[DOI: 10.1126/stke.4092007tw388]

EDITORS' CHOICE

Circadian Rhythms Clocks in the Corals

Beverly A. Purnell

Science, AAAS, Washington, DC 20005, USA

Moonlight triggers the synchronized spawning of reef-building corals; however, the mechanism underlying detection of moonlight by these animals is largely unknown. Levy et al. now demonstrate the presence of ancient blue-light-sensing photoreceptors, cryptochromes, in the reef-building coral Acropora millepora (phylum Cnidaria). Cryptochromes regulate entrainment of the circadian clock of higher animals and plants. Expression of two coral cryptochrome genes, cry1 and cry2, was rhythmic under a light-dark cycle but not in constant darkness. Expression of cry2 varied with the full moon. This work suggests that cryptochromes not only function in the circadian clock of plants and higher animals but also may trigger the synchronized spawning of the Great Barrier Reef.

O. Levy, L. Appelbaum, W. Leggat, Y. Gothlif, D. C. Hayward, D. J. Miller, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, Light-responsive cryptochromes from a simple multicellular animal, the coral Acropora millepora. Science 318, 467-470 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]

Citation: B. A. Purnell, Clocks in the Corals. Sci. STKE 2007, tw388 (2007).

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science Signaling. ISSN 1937-9145 (pre-2008: Science's STKE. ISSN 1525-8882)