Laboratory of Integrative Brain Sciences, Department of Biology, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan; Department of Biochemistry, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
Masaki Kamata
Laboratory of Integrative Brain Sciences, Department of Biology, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Takuma Tokita
Laboratory of Integrative Brain Sciences, Department of Biology, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Kei-ichiro Tashiro
Laboratory of Integrative Brain Sciences, Department of Biology, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Miku Sato
Laboratory of Integrative Brain Sciences, Department of Biology, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Mitsuki Nozaki
Laboratory of Integrative Brain Sciences, Department of Biology, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Mayumi Okamoto-Katsuyama
Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Isao Shimizu
Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Guofeng Han
Laboratory of Stress Physiology and Metabolism, Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
Vishwajit Sur Chowdhury
Laboratory of Stress Physiology and Metabolism, Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
Xiao-Feng Lei
Department of Biochemistry, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
Takuro Miyazaki
Department of Biochemistry, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
Joo-ri Kim-Kaneyama
Department of Biochemistry, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
Tomoya Nakamachi
Laboratory of Regulatory Biology, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan
The molecular mechanisms by which environmental light conditions affect cerebellar development are incompletely understood. We showed that circadian disruption by light-at-night induced Purkinje cell death through pineal allopregnanolone (ALLO) activity during early life in chicks. Light-at-night caused the loss of diurnal variation of pineal ALLO synthesis during early life and led to cerebellar Purkinje cell death, which was suppressed by a daily injection of ALLO. The loss of diurnal variation of pineal ALLO synthesis induced not only reduction in pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP), a neuroprotective hormone, but also transcriptional repression of the cerebellar Adcyap1 gene that produces PACAP, with subsequent Purkinje cell death. Taken together, pineal ALLO mediated the effect of light on early cerebellar development in chicks.
