Genome complexity: immune cell circadian clock (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 13, 2015, 14:43 (3269 days ago) @ David Turell

The Earth has four seasons, and gene expression for inflammation varies with the season all over the world:-http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/42959/title/Seasonal-Genes/-"The results indicate “sort of a molecular signature of the seasons in humans,” said Ghislain Breton, who studies circadian rhythms at the University of Texas at Houston, but was not involved in the work.-"In immune cells of the blood, the expression of genes that promote inflammation tends to rise in the winter and dip in the summer, the team—led by investigators at the University of Cambridge—found. The researchers hypothesized that these and other seasonal gene-expression patterns may help explain the seasonality of diseases, from infectious maladies like the flu to chronic conditions such as heart disease.-“'We now know that all immune cell types have their own circadian clocks, as is the case for virtually all other organs and cell types in the body,'” -***-"An outstanding question is whether expression levels of pro-inflammatory genes rise in the winter as an offensive measure against pathogens or as a response to heightened pathogen exposure.“That's the ‘chicken and egg' argument,” said Todd."