查看文章

A biological clock exists in many organisms and controls rhythmic behaviors such as the activity pattern of locomotion. At the cellular level, it has been shown that circadian rhythms in the morphology of neurons exist in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The studies presented in this thesis contribute to an increased understanding of this novel aspect of neuronal plasticity and its regulation.

We demonstrated the existence of a circadian rhythm in the morphology of neuromuscular terminals that innervate two identified flight muscles. Synaptic boutons are larger during the day than during the night under light: dark conditions (LD) as well as in constant darkness (DD). However, this rhythm is abolished in normal flies older than 30 days and in arrhythmic ones with null mutations in the clock genes period (per) or timeless (tim). Furthermore, these clock mutants show a completely different branching pattern indicating that the proteins PER and TIM not only function in well-described mechanisms in the circadian clock but also on neuronal morphology.