Non-canonical circadian oscillations in Drosophila S2 cells drive gene-expression cycles coupled to metabolic oscillations

Abstract

Circadian rhythms are cell-autonomous biological oscillations with a period of about 24 hours. Current models propose that transcriptional feedback loops are the principal mechanism for the generation of circadian oscillations. In these models, Drosophila S2 cells are generally regarded as non-rhythmic cells, as they do not express several canonical circadian components. Using an unbiased multi-omics approach, we made the surprising discovery that Drosophila S2 cells do in fact display widespread daily rhythms. Transcriptomics and proteomics analyses revealed that hundreds of genes and their products are rhythmically expressed in a 24-hour cycle. Metabolomics analyses extended these findings and illustrated that central carbon metabolism and amino acid metabolism are the main pathways regulated in a rhythmic fashion. We thus demonstrate that daily genome-wide oscillations, coupled to metabolic cycles, take place in eukaryotic cells without the contribution of known circadian regulators.