About the Project
Our lives are built around daily (circadian) cycles of behaviour and metabolism, the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness being the most pervasive. Well ordered circadian rhythms and sleep are a pre-requisite for both physical and mental health, such that disturbances of them are associated with many forms of illness, both metabolic (e.g. obesity and diabetes) and psychiatric (e.g. depression and schizophrenia).
The principal co-ordinator of circadian rhythms is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus: this is the dominant circadian clock of the brain, using a molecular genetic feedback loop that can define approx. 24h cycles indefinitely. But how does this cluster of 10,000 clock neurons send out timing signals to control the rest of the brain and body? This project will apply state-of-the-art neural reconstruction high-volume microscopy and virally based methods to track, reconstruct and then genetically manipulate circuits that convey SCN time signals to brain regions involved in circadian physiology and behaviour. It will exploit both in vivo (behavioural, physiological) and in vitro (organotypic brain slice techniques) approaches using genetically modified mice, including lines carrying constitutive and conditional, circadian and neurochemical genetic mutations, combined with bioluminescent and fluorescent imaging and optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulation alongside genetic code expansion to control circadian protein expression by translational switching.
The project will provide a sound training in systems and molecular neuroscience. The successful candidate will work within a multidisciplinary research group with a strong international reputation in circadian clock neurobiology, and will also enjoy productive interactions with other research groups in the Neurobiology Division and wider LMB.
Recent first-author papers from previous graduate students of Hastings group:
Edwards et al. PNAS (2016).
Smyllie et al. PNAS (2016)
Smyllie et al. Current Biology (2016).
References
References
Patton AP, Hastings MH. (2018)
The suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Current Biology 28(15):R816-R822. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.052. PMID: 30086310.
Hastings MH, Maywood ES, Brancaccio M. (2018)
Generation of circadian rhythms in the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Nature Reviews Neuroscience 19(8):453-469. doi: 10.1038/s41583-018-0026-z. PMID: 29934559.
Krogager TP, Ernst RJ, Elliott TS, Calo L, Beránek V, Ciabatti E, Spillantini MG, Tripodi M, Hastings MH, Chin JW. (2018)
Labeling and identifying cell-specific proteomes in the mouse brain.
Nature Biotechnology 36(2):156-159. doi: 10.1038/nbt.4056. Epub 2017 Dec 18. PMID: 29251727.
Brancaccio M, Patton AP, Chesham JE, Maywood ES, Hastings MH. (2017)
Astrocytes Control Circadian Timekeeping in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus via Glutamatergic Signaling.
Neuron 93: 1420-1435. PMID: 28285822.
Ernst RJ, Krogager TP, Maywood ES, Zanchi R, Beranek V, Elliott TS, Barry NP, Hastings MH & Chin JW. (2016)
Genetic code expansion in the mouse brain.
Nature Chemical Biology 12:776-778. PMID: 27571478.