Circadian Rhythms ― Methods And Protocols

Circadian timing, the ability of an organism to temporally synchronize endogenous function with the external environment, has been found in every species and in many different cell types. Aiming this collection of 44 papers at those who are new to circadian biology or those may merely wish to learn new techniques, Rosato (U. of Leicester, UK) presents a compendium of laboratory methods and protocols for investigating circadian timing. These include rhythmic readouts, identification of clock genes, gene expression with RNA, gene expression with proteins, in vitro systems, and microscopy analysis. A few examples of specific topics include locomotor activity in rodents, automated video image analysis of larval zebrafish locomotor rhythms, identification of clock genes using difference gel electrophoresis, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, coimmunoprecipitation assay, manipulation of mammalian cell lines for circadian studies, and immunocytochemistry on suprachiasmatic nucleus slices. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)