Transgenic corn and cotton expressing Cry and/or Vip3Aa proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) have been planted for managing lepidopteran coleopteran insect pests more than two decades in the U.S. Evolution of resistance to these Bt is a major threat continued efficacy technology. Understanding patterns cross-resistance dominance target insects essential management pest control. The bollwor...

The subcellular localization of COP1, a key photomorphogenic repressor, is regulated by light in Arabidopsis seedlings. Photoreceptor loss-of-function mutants and dominant gain-of-function overexpression transgenes were both used to analyze the influences of the three photoreceptors, phyA, phyB, and CRY1, on the light-regulated subcellular localization of COP1. Through a semiquantitative analys...

Migratory birds can use a magnetic compass for orientation during their migratory journeys covering thousands of kilometers. But how do they sense the reference direction provided by the Earth's magnetic field? Behavioral evidence and theoretical considerations have suggested that radical-pair processes in differently oriented, light-sensitive molecules of the retina could enable migratory bird...

Cryptochrome (CRY), a photoreceptor for the circadian clock in Drosophila, binds to the clock component TIM in a light-dependent fashion and blocks its function. In mammals, genetic evidence suggests a role for CRYs within the clock, distinct from hypothetical photoreceptor functions. Mammalian CRY1 and CRY2 are here shown to act as light-independent inhibitors of CLOCK-BMAL1, the activator dri...

Lithium is widely used as a treatment of bipolar disorder, a neuropsychiatric disorder associated with disrupted circadian rhythms. Lithium is known to lengthen period and increase amplitude of circadian rhythms. One possible pathway for these effects involves inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β), which regulates degradation of CRY2, a canonical clock protein determining circadian...

Plants perceive subtle changes in light quality and quantity through a set of photoreceptors, including phytochromes and cryptochromes. Upon perception, these photoreceptors initiate signal transduction pathways leading to photomorphogenic changes in development. Using activation-tagging mutagenesis to identify novel light-signaling components, we have isolated a gain-of-function mutant, sob1-D...

The transcription/translation feedback loop-based molecular oscillator underlying the generation of circadian gene expression is preserved in almost all organisms. Interestingly, the animal circadian clock proteins CRYPTOCHROME (CRY), PERIOD (PER) and TIMELESS (TIM) are strongly conserved at the amino acid level through evolution. Within this evolutionary frame, TIM represents a fascinating puz...