Circadian oscillators are present in various cell types of the vertebrate retina (
Liu et al., 2012), including the photoreceptors (
Besharse and Iuvone, 1983;
Cahill and Besharse, 1995), bipolar cells (
Chong et al., 1998;
Hull et al., 2006), amacrine cells (
Chong et al., 1998;
Gabriel et al., 2001;
Dorenbos et al., 2007), ganglion cells (
Liang et al., 2004;
Ruan et al., 2006;
Liu et al., 2012), and Müller glial cells (
Ruan et al., 2006;
Xu et al., 2016). These oscillators provide a mechanism for the retina to anticipate and adapt to daily changes in ambient illumination over 10 to 12 orders of magnitude (
Green and Besharse, 2004;
Ruan et al., 2006). We previously showed that the physiology of the chicken retina is under circadian control through complex signaling networks (
Ko et al., 2007;
Ko et al., 2009a;
Huang et al., 2012;
Huang et al., 2013;
Ko et al., 2013;
Huang et al., 2015). In particular, the overall retinal adenosine triphosphate (ATP) content displays a daily rhythm, and the activation of the ATP-sensing kinase, AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), is rhythmic and is anti-phase to the ATP rhythm (
Huang et al., 2015). The major ATP-generating organelle in a cell is the mitochondrion. Mitochondria are mobile organelles that constantly undergo morphological changes with frequent cycles of fission and fusion, the opposing processes that achieve equilibrium when cells are healthy (
Sesaki and Jensen, 1999;
Scott and Youle, 2010). Dynamin-related protein 1 (DRP1) is a GTPase that mediates mitochondrial fission, whereas mitofusin 2 (MFN2) coordinates with MFN1 to regulate mitochondrial fusion (
Chen et al., 2003;
Lee et al., 2004). Healthy and mildly damaged mitochondria can fuse to generate new organelles to compensate for damaged ones (
Neuspiel et al., 2005). However, severely damaged mitochondria divide and become fragmented and depolarized. Once the mitochondria are depolarized, a programmed autophagy known as
mitophagy is triggered to eliminate the damaged mitochondria. The lysosomes selectively degrade the damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria, recycle the mitochondrial contents, and retain the appropriate number of mitochondria in order to maintain homeostasis and proper metabolism (
Jin and Youle, 2012;
Esteban-Martinez et al., 2017). Impaired autophagy leads to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cell degeneration (
Kunchithapautham and Rohrer, 2007a;
Kunchithapautham and Rohrer, 2007b). Thus, mitochondria are highly dynamic, and their numbers and shape within a cell are tightly associated with cellular metabolism (
Dietrich et al., 2013).
Herein, we investigated whether the mitochondrial dynamics, mitophagy, and redox states of the retina and photoreceptors were under circadian regulation or were affected only by light. Since we previously reported that the ATP content in the chicken retina is under circadian control (
Huang et al., 2015), we determined whether the protein expression of mitochondrial dynamic proteins (DRP1, MFN2, and phosphatase and tensin homolog [PTEN]-induced putative kinase 1 [PINK1]) displayed daily or circadian rhythms. Since the chicken retina is cone-dominant with 86% of photoreceptors being cones (
Morris, 1970), we also compared the mitochondrial dynamics in the chicken retina to cultured mammalian 661W cells. Mammalian 661W cells are originally derived from a mouse retinal tumor and characterized as a cone-photoreceptor cell line, since they express cone-specific opsins, transducin, and arrestin (
al-Ubaidi et al., 1992;
Tan et al., 2004). As 661W cells respond to light (
Kanan et al., 2007), they could possibly be entrained by cycling lights, which we tested in this study. We examined whether the mitochondrial dynamics were under circadian control in the chicken retina and 661W cells, since both were “cone” dominant. We further determined whether the responses to oxidative stress were also under circadian regulation in both light-sensing cells.
Discussion
In this report, we showed that mitochondrial dynamics displayed daily and circadian rhythms in the chicken retina and mammalian photoreceptors. In the chicken retina, the mitochondrial fission protein DRP1 was high during the light phase whereas fusion protein MFN2 was high during the dark phase when the embryos were maintained under LD cycles. In DD, only DRP1 displayed a circadian rhythm with a peak during the subjective dark phase. In cultured 661W cells, only MFN2 displayed a significant daily rhythm, but in DD, DRP1 was significantly higher during the subjective dark phase. The mitophagy regulator PINK1 displayed significant daily rhythms but not circadian rhythms in both chicken retinas and 661W cells.
Since 661W cells are murine cone-derived cells, DRP1, MFN2, and PINK1 should have similar daily phases in the 661W cells as in the chicken retina, which is cone-dominant. However, the daily rhythms of DRP1, MFN2, and PINK1 in the chicken retina were not in phases similar to those observed in cultured 661W cells. A few possibilities might explain this outcome: First, we used whole chicken retina in our experiments, such that various retinal cell types were included in our assays. While cones are the dominant photoreceptors in the chicken retina, other retinal cell types in the inner retina might modulate the overall outcomes under LD, even though cultured embryonic cone photoreceptors have circadian oscillators independent from other cell types (
Ko et al., 2001). In addition to photoreceptors, horizontal cells, bipolar cells, amacrine cells, and ganglion cells all express circadian genes (
Ruan et al., 2006). Under light or during the daytime, retinal amacrine cells release dopamine that is able to inhibit the release of melatonin from the photoreceptors (
Zawilska and Iuvone, 1989;
Kazula et al., 1993;
Thomas et al., 1993;
Adachi et al., 1995;
Ebihara et al., 1997;
Luft et al., 2004;
Ivanova et al., 2008). Dopamine also regulates cGMP-gated cation channels in chicken photoreceptors (
Ko et al., 2003), so amacrine cells might modulate the photoreceptor daily rhythmicities and light sensitivities. Second, the overall avian circadian clock is a multioscillator system comprising the retina, the pineal gland, and the avian homologs of the suprachiasmatic nuclei, whose mutual interactions ensure coordinated physiological functions, which are in turn synchronized to ambient cyclic lights via encephalic, pineal, and retinal photoreceptors (
Cassone and Westneat, 2012). Since we entrained the chicken retina
in ovo, under LD, the daily rhythms of DRP1, MFN2, and PINK1 are the summation of all retinal cells in the chicken retina that could be under the influence of the avian-SCN and pineal gland, which would be different from the outcome for stand-alone 661W cells.
Third, while 661W cells respond to light, they might not have functional circadian oscillators that modulate light responses as the oscillators in normal cone photoreceptors do. The naive cone photoreceptors have independent oscillators that regulate ion channels responsible for phototransduction and neurotransmitter release (
Ko et al., 2001;
Ko et al., 2004;
Ko et al., 2007;
Liu et al., 2012), and the circadian regulation in these photoreceptors outweighs the short illumination effects on cell signaling (
Ko et al., 2009b). However, even though we detected the canonical circadian genes including
Period 1 (Per 1), Per 2, and
Bmal1 in cultured 661W cells (data not shown), these cells might not possess a functional oscillator, since
Per 1 did not display circadian rhythmicity under constant darkness (
Suppl. Fig. S1). An alternative explanation is that under DD, the 661W cells were desynchronized, but individual 661W cell might still oscillate. Unlike cultured SCN slices that maintain robust oscillations with cellular synchrony (
Yamaguchi et al., 2003), in dissociated SCN neuron cultures, individual SCN neurons but not the whole culture display independent oscillations (
Welsh et al., 1995;
Herzog et al., 1998;
Honma et al., 1998), which is due to the desynchronization among dissociated SCN neurons without proper synaptic connections and gap junctions (
Welsh et al., 2010). While 661W cells form synapse-like contacts in cultures (
Tan et al., 2004), they are not known to form gap junctions like rods and cones in the intact retina that are critical for maintaining rod-cone coupling and the overall retinal circadian rhythms (
Ribelayga and Mangel, 2005;
Ribelayga et al., 2008;
Jin et al., 2015;
Zhang et al., 2015;
Jin and Ribelayga, 2016). In addition, we did not observe these entrained 661W cells having individual oscillations on the second day of DD in our
MitoTimer study (
Fig. 5). Thus, it is unlikely that the lack of circadian rhythms of cultured 661W cells is due to cellular desynchronization. Fourth, the daily rhythms of DRP1, MFN2, and PINK1 in cone photoreceptors could be species-dependent, given that chickens are diurnal animals whereas laboratory mice (origin of 661W cells) are nocturnal. This possibility is highly unlikely, since there is no evidence indicating any differences in cone photoreceptor light-sensing properties across diurnal or nocturnal mammalian species, and we did not directly compare cone photoreceptors derived from a diurnal mammal with 661W cells.
Energy and oxygen consumption in the retina are greatly influenced by light and darkness (
Medrano and Fox, 1995;
Okawa et al., 2008;
Linton et al., 2010). The retinal photoreceptors especially have a higher metabolic activity in the dark (
Wong-Riley, 2010), meaning that ATP is hydrolyzed in an accelerated rate to support tonic neurotransmitter release, so mitochondria will have to produce more ATP to sustain photoreceptor activities. As a result, the mitochondrial enzymes that are responsible for ATP production should be more active in darkness, which is supported by
Huang et al. (2004), who reported that the mitochondrial enzymes cytochrome C oxidase III and adenosine triphosphatase-6 are down-regulated by higher light intensity. Thus, overall ATP production may be lower in bright light. However, retinal energy metabolism is also under circadian regulation. By measuring the pH changes in the fish retina,
Dmitriev and Mangel (2004) demonstrated a circadian regulation of retinal energy metabolism. We previously reported that the chicken retinal ATP content is rhythmic, and the activation and phosphorylation of AMPK, the intracellular energy sensor, are anti-phasic to the ATP rhythm (
Huang et al., 2015). Therefore, the retinal energy expenditure and production can be light and darkness driven as a reflection of acute light-dark adaptation, as well as circadian regulated, since the retina anticipates and adapts to the upcoming light changes at dawn and dusk (
Huang et al., 2015).
The ATP level is critical in regulating mitochondrial dynamics. The mitochondrial fusion process is dampened by a decrease of intracellular ATP (
Legros et al., 2002). Low levels of intracellular ATP prevent PINK1 translation and Parkin mitochondrial translocation (
Lee et al., 2015). We found that under LD, the levels of fission protein DRP1 were lower at night, with MFN2 and PINK1 being higher in the chicken retina, but these daily rhythms do not follow the overall retinal ATP rhythm, which peaks at ZT 13 (
Huang et al., 2015). One explanation is that the previous studies on ATP and mitochondrial dynamics were performed in cultured cell lines, while our results were from whole chicken retinas, which is not a homogenous tissue. Under DD, only the fusion protein DRP1 displayed circadian rhythms in both chicken retinas and 661W cells (with the peaks in the subjective night), while MFN2 and PINK1 were not rhythmic. Since mitochondrial fission and fusion are complex processes, it is necessary to account for multiple players (such as DRP1, MFN2, and PINK1) collectively. Thus, when the rhythms of DRP1, MFN2, and PINK1 are compared under LD and DD, cyclic lights or illumination might have a stronger influence on mitochondrial dynamics than the circadian oscillators in photoreceptors.
In
Drosophila, there is a daily rhythm in the sensitivity to oxidative stress, in which exposure to H
2O
2 (88 µM) for 4 h during the day at ZT 8 causes significantly higher mortality than at other times of the day, indicating that flies are most vulnerable to oxidative stress during the midday. If the daily rhythm of flies is abolished either by a null mutation of the clock gene
Period (Per) or by keeping these flies in constant light, the mortality rate is equally high regardless of when the flies are exposed to H
2O
2 (
Krishnan et al., 2008). Such daily rhythm in the sensitivity to acute H
2O
2-induced oxidative stress is observed also in salmon, with major detoxification enzymes expressed in the liver but not the gills displaying daily rhythms (
Vera and Migaud, 2016). While the circadian oscillators certainly play an important role in the sensitivity of oxidative stress in these organisms, these results do not exclude the possibility that longer term (~8 h) light exposure might cause additional stress leading to mortality in
Drosophila.The dynamics of mitochondrial fusion and fission are essential for the physiological integrity of neurons, so perturbation of mitochondrial dynamics inevitably contributes to neurodegenerative diseases (
Gunawardena and Goldstein, 2004;
Bereiter-Hahn and Jendrach, 2010). In various cell types, mitochondrial fission correlates with oxidative stress, an overproduction of ROS (
Wu et al., 2011). Our observation of increased mitochondrial fission by H
2O
2 treatments in cultured chicken retinas is consistent with previous reports (
Yu et al., 2006;
Fan et al., 2010;
Wu et al., 2011). However, we did not find that H
2O
2 caused increased mitochondrial fission or decreased mitochondrial fusion in a time-of-day fashion in cultured chicken retinas. Rather, hours of illumination might have a greater effect on mitochondrial dynamics in the retinas, which was also reflected in the daily but not circadian rhythm of mitochondrial redox states in cultured 661W cells.
In this study, we demonstrated daily rhythms of mitochondrial fission and fusion processes, but only the fission protein displayed circadian oscillations. Because mitochondrial dynamics are complex, entailing multiple players, and since photoreceptors have both light-sensing and circadian machineries, our data presented here suggest that cyclic lights or illumination might have a stronger influence than the circadian oscillators on mitochondrial dynamics in retinal cells.