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From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n
Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRead more<\/span><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nE<\/span>ver found yourself out of sync with normal sleep patterns after late nights or working a night shift? It could be you\u2019re experiencing what scientists call social jet lag.<\/p>\nThe term describes the misalignment between our internal body clock (circadian rhythm) and our social schedule.<\/p>\n
Social jet lag associated with irregular sleep patterns and inconsistent exposure to daylight is increasingly common, and has been linked with a weakened immune system.<\/p>\n
Disruption of our circadian rhythms through shift work, for example, has been shown to have a negative impact on our ability to fight infections.<\/p>\n
These observations reinforce the idea that maintaining a robust circadian rhythm through regular exposure to daylight supports a healthy immune system.<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>Consistently getting out into daylight will help your body stay strong (Getty Images\/iStockphoto)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBut how does the immune system know when it\u2019s daytime? That is precisely what our research, published today in Science Immunology, has uncovered. Our findings could eventually deliver benefits for the treatment of inflammatory conditions.<\/p>\n
First responders to infection<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n Circadian rhythms are a fundamental feature of all life on Earth. Believed to have evolved some 2.5 billion years ago, they enable organisms to adapt to challenges associated with the 24-hour solar day.<\/p>\n
At the molecular level, these circadian rhythms are orchestrated through a genetically encoded multi-component time keeper called a circadian clock. Almost all cells are known to have the components for a circadian clock. But how they function within different cell types to regulate their behaviour is very poorly understood.<\/p>\n
In the laboratory, we use zebrafish \u2013 small freshwater fish commonly sold in pet stores \u2013 as a model organism to understand our immune response to bacterial infection.<\/p>\n
We use larval zebrafish because their genetic makeup and immune system are similar to ours. Also, they have transparent bodies, making it easy to observe biological processes under the microscope.<\/p>\n
We focus on an immune cell called a \u201cneutrophil\u201d, a type of white blood cell. We\u2019re interested in these cells because they specialise in killing bacteria, are first responders to infection, and are the most abundant immune cell in our bodies.<\/p>\n
Because they are very short-lived cells, neutrophils isolated from human blood are notoriously difficult to work with experimentally. However, with transparent larval zebrafish, we can film them to directly observe how these cells function, within a completely intact animal.<\/p>\n
Cells can tell if it\u2019s daytime<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n Our initial studies showed the strength of immune response to bacterial infection peaked during the day, when the animals are active.<\/p>\n
We think this represents an evolutionary response that provides both humans and zebrafish a survival advantage. Because diurnal animals such as humans and zebrafish are most active during daylight hours, they are more likely to encounter bacterial infections.<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>Circadian rhythms – or your internal clock – are a fundamental feature of all life on Earth (Getty Images\/iStock)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThis work made us curious to know how this enhanced immune response was being synchronised with daylight. By making movies of neutrophils killing bacteria at different times of the day, we discovered they killed bacteria more efficiently during the daytime than at night.<\/p>\n
We then genetically edited neutrophils to turn off their circadian clocks by carefully removing specific clock components. This is an approach similar to removing important cogs from an analogue clock so it doesn\u2019t tick anymore.<\/p>\n
This led to the discovery that these important immune cells possess an internal light-regulated circadian clock that alerts the cells to daytime (similar to an alarm clock). This boosts their ability to kill bacteria.<\/p>\n
Our next challenge is to understand exactly how light is detected by neutrophils, and whether human neutrophils also rely on this internal timing mechanism to regulate their antibacterial activity.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re also curious to see if this killing mechanism is restricted to certain types of bacteria, such as those we\u2019re more likely to encounter during the day. Or is it a more general response to all infectious threats (including viral infections)?<\/p>\n
This research unlocks the potential for developing drugs that target the neutrophil circadian clock to regulate the cells\u2019 activity. Given neutrophils are the first and most abundant immune cells to be recruited to sites of inflammation, the discovery has very broad implications for many inflammatory conditions.<\/p>\n
The research described here was led by PhD candidates Lucia Du and Pramuk Keerthisinghe, and was a collaboration between the Hall laboratory and the Chronobiology Research Group, led by Guy Warman and James Cheeseman, at the University of Auckland\u2019s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.<\/p>\n
Chris Hall is an Associate Professor of Immunology at the University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau, New Zealand. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the <\/em>original article.<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more Ever found yourself out of sync with normal sleep patterns after late nights or working a night shift? It could be you\u2019re experiencing what scientists call social jet lag. The term describes the misalignment between our internal body clock (circadian rhythm) and our social schedule. Social jet lag associated with irregular sleep patterns and inconsistent exposure to daylight is increasingly common, and has been linked with a weakened immune system. Disruption of our circadian rhythms through shift work, for example, has been shown to have a negative impact on our ability to fight infections. These observations reinforce the idea that maintaining a robust circadian rhythm through regular exposure to daylight supports a healthy immune system. open image in gallery Consistently getting out into daylight will help your body stay strong (Getty Images\/iStockphoto) But how does the immune system know when it\u2019s daytime? That is precisely what our research, published today in Science Immunology, has uncovered. Our findings co…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}