Similar gene controls plant, human clocks

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, identified the "Jumonji-containing domain 5 gene," that plays a part in regulating the circadian rhythm of the lab plant Arabidopsis, a university release said.

The protein made by the gene can likely regulate how genes are turned on and off, potentially making it part of a clock controller, they say.

When Stacey Harmer, associate professor of plant biology, and colleagues made Arabidopsis plants with a deficient gene, they found that the plants' internal circadian clock ran fast.

A similar gene is found in humans, the researchers say, and human cells with a deficiency in this gene also have a fast-running clock.

When the researchers inserted the plant gene into the defective human cells, they could set the clock back to normal -- and the human gene could do the same trick in plant seedlings, they found.

Harmer thinks the fact a very similar gene has the same function in both plants and humans is probably an example of convergent evolution, when two organisms arrive at the same solution to a problem but from apparently different starting points.

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