Daily running enhances molecular and physiological circadian rhythms in skeletal muscle

Objective

Exercise is a critical component of a healthy lifestyle and a key strategy for the prevention and management of metabolic disease. Identifying molecular mechanisms underlying adaptation in response to chronic physical activity is of critical interest in metabolic physiology. Circadian rhythms broadly modulate metabolism, including muscle substrate utilization and exercise capacity. Here, we define the molecular and physiological changes induced across the daily cycle by voluntary low intensity daily exercise.

Methods

Wildtype C57BL6/J male and female mice were housed with or without access to a running wheel for six weeks. Maximum running speed was measured at four different zeitgeber times (ZTs, hours after lights on) using either electrical or manual stimulation to motivate continued running on a motorized treadmill. RNA isolated from plantaris muscles at six ZTs was sequenced to establish the impact of daily activity on genome-wide transcription. Patterns of gene expression were analyzed using Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and Detection of Differential Rhythmicity (DODR). Blood glucose, lactate, and ketones, and muscle and liver glycogen were measured before and after exercise.

Results

We demonstrate that the use of mild electrical shocks to motivate running negatively impacts maximum running speed in mice, and describe a manual method to motivate running in rodent exercise studies. Using this method, we show that time of day influences the increase in exercise capacity afforded by six weeks of voluntary wheel running: when maximum running speed is measured at the beginning of the nighttime active period in mice, there is no measurable benefit from a history of daily voluntary running, while maximum increase in performance occurs at the end of the night. We show that daily voluntary exercise dramatically remodels the murine muscle circadian transcriptome. Finally, we describe daily rhythms in carbohydrate metabolism associated with the time-dependent response to moderate daily exercise in mice.

Conclusions

Collectively, these data indicate that chronic nighttime physical activity dramatically remodels daily rhythms of murine muscle gene expression, which in turn support daily fluctuations in exercise performance.

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Daily voluntary running dramatically remodels the mouse muscle circadian transcriptome.

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Daily voluntary running maximally increases mouse running speed in the late active period.

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Muscle and liver glycogen content exhibit robust daily rhythms in laboratory mice.

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Use of mild electric shocks to motivate running in mice impairs maximum running speed.

Transcriptomic, proteomic and phosphoproteomic underpinnings of daily exercise performance and zeitgeber activity of training in mouse muscle

Key points

Maximal endurance performance is greater in the early daytime.

Timed exercise differentially alters the muscle transcriptome and (phospho)‐proteome.

Early daytime exercise triggers energy provisioning and tissue regeneration.

Early night‐time exercise activates stress‐related and catabolic pathways.

Scheduled training has limited effects on the muscle and liver circadian clocks.

Abstract

Timed physical activity might potentiate the health benefits of training. The underlying signalling events triggered by exercise at different times of day are, however, poorly understood. Here, we found that time‐dependent variations in maximal treadmill exercise capacity of naïve mice were associated with energy stores, mostly hepatic glycogen levels. Importantly, running at different times of day resulted in a vastly different activation of signalling pathways, e.g. related to stress response, vesicular trafficking, repair and regeneration. Second, voluntary wheel running at the opposite phase of the dark, feeding period surprisingly revealed a minimal zeitgeber (i.e. phase‐shifting) effect of training on the muscle clock. This integrated study provides important insights into the circadian regulation of endurance performance and the control of the circadian clock by exercise. In future studies, these results could contribute to better understanding circadian aspects of training design in athletes and the application of chrono‐exercise‐based interventions in patients.

Simple Kinetic Models in Molecular Chronobiology

Circadian rhythms are constituted by a complex dynamical system with intertwined feedback loops, molecular switches, and self-sustained oscillations. Mathematical modeling supports understanding available heterogeneous kinetic data, highlights basic mechanisms, and can guide experimental research. Here, we introduce the basic steps from a biological question to simple models providing insight into gene-regulatory mechanisms. We illustrate the general approach by three examples: modeling decay processes, clock-controlled genes, and self-sustained oscillations.

Guidelines for Genome-Scale Analysis of Biological Rhythms

Genome biology approaches have made enormous contributions to our understanding of biological rhythms, particularly in identifying outputs of the clock, including RNAs, proteins, and metabolites, whose abundance oscillates throughout the day. These methods hold significant promise for future discovery, particularly when combined with computational modeling. However, genome-scale experiments are costly and laborious, yielding “big data” that are conceptually and statistically difficult to analyze. There is no obvious consensus regarding design or analysis. Here we discuss the relevant technical considerations to generate reproducible, statistically sound, and broadly useful genome-scale data. Rather than suggest a set of rigid rules, we aim to codify principles by which investigators, reviewers, and readers of the primary literature can evaluate the suitability of different experimental designs for measuring different aspects of biological rhythms. We introduce CircaInSilico, a web-based application for generating synthetic genome biology data to benchmark statistical methods for studying biological rhythms. Finally, we discuss several unmet analytical needs, including applications to clinical medicine, and suggest productive avenues to address them.

Linking Core Promoter Classes to Circadian Transcription

Circadian rhythms in transcription are generated by rhythmic abundances and DNA binding activities of transcription factors. Propagation of rhythms to transcriptional initiation involves the core promoter, its chromatin state, and the basal transcription machinery. Here, I characterize core promoters and chromatin states of genes transcribed in a circadian manner in mouse liver and in Drosophila. It is shown that the core promoter is a critical determinant of circadian mRNA expression in both species. A distinct core promoter class, strong circadian promoters (SCPs), is identified in mouse liver but not Drosophila. SCPs are defined by specific core promoter features, and are shown to drive circadian transcriptional activities with both high averages and high amplitudes. Data analysis and mathematical modeling further provided evidence for rhythmic regulation of both polymerase II recruitment and pause release at SCPs. The analysis provides a comprehensive and systematic view of core promoters and their link to circadian mRNA expression in mouse and Drosophila, and thus reveals a crucial role for the core promoter in regulated, dynamic transcription.

Circadian mRNA expression: insights from modeling and transcriptomics

Circadian clocks synchronize organisms to the 24 h rhythms of the environment. These clocks persist under constant conditions, have their origin at the cellular level, and produce an output of rhythmic mRNA expression affecting thousands of transcripts in many mammalian cell types. Here, we review the charting of circadian output rhythms in mRNA expression, focusing on mammals. We emphasize the challenges in statistics, interpretation, and quantitative descriptions that such investigations have faced and continue to face, and outline remaining outstanding questions.

Detecting rhythms in time series with RAIN

A fundamental problem in research on biological rhythms is that of detecting and assessing the significance of rhythms in large sets of data. Classic methods based on Fourier theory are often hampered by the complex and unpredictable characteristics of experimental and biological noise. Robust nonparametric methods are available but are limited to specific wave forms. We present RAIN, a robust nonparametric method for the detection of rhythms of prespecified periods in biological data that can detect arbitrary wave forms. When applied to measurements of the circadian transcriptome and proteome of mouse liver, the sets of transcripts and proteins with rhythmic abundances were significantly expanded due to the increased detection power, when we controlled for false discovery. Validation against independent data confirmed the quality of these results. The large expansion of the circadian mouse liver transcriptomes and proteomes reflected the prevalence of nonsymmetric wave forms and led to new conclusions about function. RAIN was implemented as a freely available software package for R/Bioconductor and is presently also available as a web interface.

Rhythmic degradation explains and unifies circadian transcriptome and proteome data

The rich mammalian cellular circadian output affects thousands of genes in many cell types and has been the subject of genome-wide transcriptome and proteome studies. The results have been enigmatic because transcript peak abundances do not always follow the peaks of gene-expression activity in time. We posited that circadian degradation of mRNAs and proteins plays a pivotal role in setting their peak times. To establish guiding principles, we derived a theoretical framework that fully describes the amplitudes and phases of biomolecules with circadian half-lives. We were able to explain the circadian transcriptome and proteome studies with the same unifying theory, including cases in which transcripts or proteins appeared before the onset of increased production rates. Furthermore, we estimate that 30% of the circadian transcripts in mouse liver and Drosophila heads are affected by rhythmic posttranscriptional regulation.

Mathematical modeling in chronobiology

Circadian clocks are autonomous oscillators entrained by external Zeitgebers such as light-dark and temperature cycles. On the cellular level, rhythms are generated by negative transcriptional feedback loops. In mammals, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the anterior part of the hypothalamus plays the role of the central circadian pacemaker. Coupling between individual neurons in the SCN leads to precise self-sustained oscillations even in the absence of external signals. These neuronal rhythms orchestrate the phasing of circadian oscillations in peripheral organs. Altogether, the mammalian circadian system can be regarded as a network of coupled oscillators. In order to understand the dynamic complexity of these rhythms, mathematical models successfully complement experimental investigations. Here we discuss basic ideas of modeling on three different levels (1) rhythm generation in single cells by delayed negative feedbacks, (2) synchronization of cells via external stimuli or cell-cell coupling, and (3) optimization of chronotherapy.

Adipocyte turnover: relevance to human adipose tissue morphology

OBJECTIVE

Adipose tissue may contain few large adipocytes (hypertrophy) or many small adipocytes (hyperplasia). We investigated factors of putative importance for adipose tissue morphology.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Subcutaneous adipocyte size and total fat mass were compared in 764 subjects with BMI 18-60 kg/m(2). A morphology value was defined as the difference between the measured adipocyte volume and the expected volume given by a curved-line fit for a given body fat mass and was related to insulin values. In 35 subjects, in vivo adipocyte turnover was measured by exploiting incorporation of atmospheric (14)C into DNA.

RESULTS

Occurrence of hyperplasia (negative morphology value) or hypertrophy (positive morphology value) was independent of sex and body weight but correlated with fasting plasma insulin levels and insulin sensitivity, independent of adipocyte volume (beta-coefficient = 0.3, P < 0.0001). Total adipocyte number and morphology were negatively related (r = -0.66); i.e., the total adipocyte number was greatest in pronounced hyperplasia and smallest in pronounced hypertrophy. The absolute number of new adipocytes generated each year was 70% lower (P < 0.001) in hypertrophy than in hyperplasia, and individual values for adipocyte generation and morphology were strongly related (r = 0.7, P < 0.001). The relative death rate (approximately 10% per year) or mean age of adipocytes (approximately 10 years) was not correlated with morphology.

CONCLUSIONS

Adipose tissue morphology correlates with insulin measures and is linked to the total adipocyte number independently of sex and body fat level. Low generation rates of adipocytes associate with adipose tissue hypertrophy, whereas high generation rates associate with adipose hyperplasia.

Global parameter search reveals design principles of the mammalian circadian clock

BACKGROUND

Virtually all living organisms have evolved a circadian (~24 hour) clock that controls physiological and behavioural processes with exquisite precision throughout the day/night cycle. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which generates these ~24 h rhythms in mammals, consists of several thousand neurons. Each neuron contains a gene-regulatory network generating molecular oscillations, and the individual neuron oscillations are synchronised by intercellular coupling, presumably via neurotransmitters. Although this basic mechanism is currently accepted and has been recapitulated in mathematical models, several fundamental questions about the design principles of the SCN remain little understood. For example, a remarkable property of the SCN is that the phase of the SCN rhythm resets rapidly after a 'jet lag' type experiment, i.e. when the light/dark (LD) cycle is abruptly advanced or delayed by several hours.

RESULTS

Here, we describe an extensive parameter optimization of a previously constructed simplified model of the SCN in order to further understand its design principles. By examining the top 50 solutions from the parameter optimization, we show that the neurotransmitters' role in generating the molecular circadian rhythms is extremely important. In addition, we show that when a neurotransmitter drives the rhythm of a system of coupled damped oscillators, it exhibits very robust synchronization and is much more easily entrained to light/dark cycles. We were also able to recreate in our simulations the fast rhythm resetting seen after a 'jet lag' type experiment.

CONCLUSION

Our work shows that a careful exploration of parameter space for even an extremely simplified model of the mammalian clock can reveal unexpected behaviours and non-trivial predictions. Our results suggest that the neurotransmitter feedback loop plays a crucial role in the robustness and phase resetting properties of the mammalian clock, even at the single neuron level.

A mesoscale model of G1/S phase transition in liver regeneration

The liver regenerates and maintains its function and size after injury by counterbalancing cell death with compensatory cell division. During liver regeneration, injured sites release cytokines, which stimulate normally quiescent hepatocytes to re-enter cell division cycle. Using a mesoscale approach, we have implemented the first mathematical model that describes cytokine-induced dedifferentiation of hepatocytes and the subsequent initiation of DNA synthesis (G0/G1 and G1/S phase transitions of the cell cycle). The model accurately reproduces experimentally measured kinetics of various signaling intermediates and DNA synthesis in hepatocytes for varying degrees of liver damage, in both wild type and knockout backgrounds. Liver regeneration is known to be a robust process, as liver mass reconstitution still occurs in various knockout mice (albeit with different kinetics). We analyze the robustness of the model using methods of control analysis. Moreover, we discuss the system's bandpass filtering properties and delays, which arise from feedbacks and nested feed-forward loops.

Beta-TrCP1-mediated degradation of PERIOD2 is essential for circadian dynamics

Regulated degradation of circadian clock proteins is a crucial step for rhythm generation per se but also for establishing a normal circadian period. Here, the authors show that the F-box protein beta-transducin repeat containing protein 1 (beta-TrCP1) as part of the E3 ubiquitin ligase complex is an essential component of the mammalian circadian oscillator. Down-regulation of endogenous beta-TrCP1 as well as expression of a dominant-negative form both result in lengthening of the circadian period in oscillating fibroblasts. These phenotypes are due to an impaired degradation of PERIOD (PER) proteins, since expression of beta-TrCP interaction-deficient PER2 variants--but not wild-type PER2--results in a dramatic stabilization of PER2 protein as well as in the disruption of circadian rhythmicity. Mathematical modeling conceptualizes the authors' findings and suggests that loss of sustained rhythmicity in cells with eliminated beta-TrCP-mediated PER2 degradation is due to excessive nuclear repression, a prediction they verified experimentally.

A mathematical model of the mitochondrial NADH shuttles and anaplerosis in the pancreatic beta-cell

The pancreatic beta-cells respond to an increased glycolytic flux by secreting insulin. The signal propagation goes via mitochondrial metabolism, which relays the signal to different routes. One route is an increased ATP production that, via ATP-sensitive K(+) (K(ATP)) channels, modulates the cell membrane potential to allow calcium influx, which triggers insulin secretion. There is also at least one other "amplifying" route whose nature is debated; possible candidates are cytosolic NADPH production or malonyl-CoA production. We have used mathematical modeling to analyze this relay system. The model comprises the mitochondrial NADH shuttles and the mitochondrial metabolism. We found robust signaling toward ATP, malonyl-CoA, and NADPH production. The signal toward NADPH production was particularly strong. Furthermore, the model reproduced the experimental findings that blocking the NADH shuttles attenuates the signaling to ATP production while retaining the rate of glucose oxidation (Eto K, Tsubamoto Y, Terauchi Y, Sugiyama T, Kishimoto T, Takahashi N, Yamauchi N, Kubota N, Murayama S, Aizawa T, Akanuma Y, Aizawa S, Kasai H, Yazaki Y, Kadowaki T. Science 283: 981-985, 1999) and provides an explanation for this apparent paradox. The model also predicts that the mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase reaction may proceed backward, toward malate production, if the activity of malic enzyme is sufficiently high. An increased fatty acid oxidation rate was found to attenuate the signaling strengths. This theoretical study has implications for our understanding of both the healthy and the diabetic beta-cell.

Differential effects of PER2 phosphorylation: molecular basis for the human familial advanced sleep phase syndrome (FASPS)

PERIOD (PER) proteins are central components within the mammalian circadian oscillator, and are believed to form a negative feedback complex that inhibits their own transcription at a particular circadian phase. Phosphorylation of PER proteins regulates their stability as well as their subcellular localization. In a systematic screen, we have identified 21 phosphorylated residues of mPER2 including Ser 659, which is mutated in patients suffering from familial advanced sleep phase syndrome (FASPS). When expressing FASPS-mutated mPER2 in oscillating fibroblasts, we can phenocopy the short period and advanced phase of FASPS patients' behavior. We show that phosphorylation at Ser 659 results in nuclear retention and stabilization of mPER2, whereas phosphorylation at other sites leads to mPER2 degradation. To conceptualize our findings, we use mathematical modeling and predict that differential PER phosphorylation events can result in opposite period phenotypes. Indeed, interference with specific aspects of mPER2 phosphorylation leads to either short or long periods in oscillating fibroblasts. This concept explains not only the FASPS phenotype, but also the effect of the tau mutation in hamster as well as the doubletime mutants (dbtS and dbtL ) in Drosophila.

A mathematical model of the Pyrosequencing reaction system

The Pyrosequencing technology is a newly developed DNA sequencing method that monitors DNA nucleotide incorporation in real-time. A set of coupled enzymatic reactions, together with bioluminescence, detects incorporated nucleotides in the form of light pulses, yielding a characteristic light profile. In this study, a biochemical model of the Pyrosequencing reaction system is suggested and implemented. The model is constructed utilizing an assumption of irreversible Michaelis-Menten rate equations and a constant incorporation efficiency. The kinetic parameters are studied and values are chosen to obtain as reliable simulation results as possible. The results presented here show strong resemblance with real experiments. The model is able to capture the dynamics of a single light pulse with great accuracy, as well as the overall characteristics of a whole pyrogram trade mark. The plus- and minus-shift effects observed in experiments are successfully reconstructed by two constant efficiency factors. Furthermore, pulse broadening can partly be explained by apyrase inhibition and successive dilution.

A model of phosphofructokinase and glycolytic oscillations in the pancreatic beta-cell

We have constructed a model of the upper part of the glycolysis in the pancreatic beta-cell. The model comprises the enzymatic reactions from glucokinase to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPD). Our results show, for a substantial part of the parameter space, an oscillatory behavior of the glycolysis for a large range of glucose concentrations. We show how the occurrence of oscillations depends on glucokinase, aldolase and/or GAPD activities, and how the oscillation period depends on the phosphofructokinase activity. We propose that the ratio of glucokinase and aldolase and/or GAPD activities are adequate as characteristics of the glucose responsiveness, rather than only the glucokinase activity. We also propose that the rapid equilibrium between different oligomeric forms of phosphofructokinase may reduce the oscillation period sensitivity to phosphofructokinase activity. Methodologically, we show that a satisfying description of phosphofructokinase kinetics can be achieved using the irreversible Hill equation with allosteric modifiers. We emphasize the use of parameter ranges rather than fixed values, and the use of operationally well-defined parameters in order for this methodology to be feasible. The theoretical results presented in this study apply to the study of insulin secretion mechanisms, since glycolytic oscillations have been proposed as a cause of oscillations in the ATP/ADP ratio which is linked to insulin secretion.