Subterranean Fishes of the World

6144

2023

Current Biology

R255-R256

33

Supplemental information contains two figures and experimental procedures, and can be found with this article online

It has become clear that circadian clocks in peripheral tissues play important functions. Disruption of the circadian clock in skeletal muscle, for example, results in insulin resistance, sarcomere disorganization, and muscle weakness1. Interestingly, cavefi sh, which exhibit a disrupted central clock, exhibit similar muscle phenotypes2–4, raising the question of whether they are caused by alterations to central or peripheral clocks. Here, we demonstrate a loss in clock function in the skeletal muscle of the Mexican Cavefi sh Astyanax mexicanus that is associated with reduced rhythmicity of a large number of genes and disrupted nocturnal protein catabolism. Some of the identifi ed genes are associated with metabolic dysfunction in humans.

1