Translational regulation of GAD1 identified by circadian and light-responsive ribosome-bound transcriptome analysis in the mouse hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus

Abstract

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) serves as the master circadian pacemaker, integrating regulation of clock genes in the SCN has been extensively studied, whether gene expression in the SCN is regulated at the level of mRNA translation has remained largely unexplored. Here, we report the first ribosome-profiling (Ribo-seq) dataset generated from the mouse SCN, enabling a genome-wide assessment of translational regulation in this central circadian clock. Combined time-series Ribo-seq and RNA-seq analyses identified 385 genes that exhibit rhythmic ribosome binding without corresponding oscillations in mRNA abundance, revealing widespread translational regulation in the SCN. Among these, light stimulation induced an approximately twofold increase in ribosome binding of Gad1, which encodes the major GABA-synthetic enzyme Gad67, despite only marginal changes in Gad1 mRNA levels. Importantly, immunohistochemical analyses demonstrated light-dependent accumulation of Gad67 protein selectively in light-activated SCN neurons, establishing that translational regulation of Gad1 gives rise to overt protein-level changes. In contrast, canonical clock genes were regulated predominantly at the transcriptional level and showed little evidence of translational modulation. Our data allow a systematic comparison between transcriptionally and translationally regulated genes, including their relative rhythm-amplitudes and phases, and thereby revealed translational control as a distinct modulatory layer shaping time-of-day-dependent and light-dependent gene expression in the SCN.