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. 2023 Feb 8;24(4):3392. doi: 10.3390/ijms24043392

Figure 1.

Figure 1

The circadian clock in mammals. In SCN neurons at the start of the circadian day, BMAL1 and CLOCK form a heterodimer (1) that binds to E-box sequences in the promoters of the Cry and Per genes (2) to activate their transcription (3). This marks the beginning of the circadian day. The gene products of Per and Cry accumulate in the cytoplasm, dimerize (4), and then form a complex that translocates into the nucleus (5) to interact with CLOCK and BMAL1, ultimately repressing their own transcription (6). This process takes approximately 24 h. LAN affects the timing of this transcription/translation cycle leading to temporal misalignments affecting physiology and behavior. CCGs = circadian clock genes. Figure was created using Biorender.com (accessed on 13 January 2022).