Nobel for medicine : the work on the biological clock honored

Science Museum London

Published the 02.10.2017 at 19: 00

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Nobel médecinehorloge biological

The week of the Nobel Prize in 2017 has started with the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology this 2 October. This year, it was awarded to three Americans, Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young, for work dating back over thirty years.

In a few years, they have made a series of discoveries on the basic mechanisms of the functioning of the biological clock. It the pace of life in mammals, but also many animals, vertebrates as invertebrates.

A first discovery in 1984

In 1984, taking as its models of fruit flies, the three researchers and their respective teams of american universities, Brandeis of Boston and Rockefeller of New York, have identified and isolated the gene responsible for the production of a protein called PER. On a 24-hour basis, the rate of PER oscillates in rhythm with the circadian cycle. It accumulates during the night, and degrades during the day.

The existence of this gene had been theorized by Seymour Benzer and Ronald Konopka in the 1970s. The two researchers had baptized period. The nobélisés have validated this theory.

Discoveries in string

Jeffrey Hall and Michael Rosbash were then conducted work to understand how the wobble could be put in place and maintain over time. Their hypothesis was the following : the protein PER block itself, the activity of the gene period. But this theory is quickly encountered some inconsistencies at the cellular level, the protein cannot enter the nucleus, and thus access to the gene and inhibit it.

In 1994, Michael Young has finally lifted, identifying a second gene involved, timeless. It allows you to produce a second molecule, TIM, that, when it is associated to PER, allows him to reach the nucleus.

Michael Young has finally identified a third gene, doubletime, which controls the oscillation frequency by delaying the accumulation of PER.