Abstract
The liver is among the peripheral organs that display a clear circadian rhythmicity. To investigate whether specific pathological conditions affect circadian rhythms in the liver, we examined the expression profiles of the clock-related and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (
GADPH) genes following a partial hepatectomy in the mouse. This surgical procedure causes dynamic proliferation of residual hepatocytes and within one day of the operation the hepatectomized mice demonstrated higher expression of both
mPer1 and
mPer2 genes in the remaining liver tissue when compared to control mice that had undergone a Sham-operation. In contrast, the
mCry1 gene in hepatectomized mice displayed a circadian gene expression profile that was similar to the control group. In addition,
GAPDH levels, that demonstrated no oscillations in Sham-hepatectomized mice, underwent daily alterations following a partial hepatectomy. These findings suggest that the regenerative state of the liver affects the expression not only of clock-related genes but also of genes that are constitutively expressed under steady state conditions.