Continuous light or darkness and circadian periodic mitosis and metabolism in C and D₈ mice

¹ Division of Cancer Biology, Department of Pathology and Department of Physiological Chemistry, University of Minnesota Medical School; and Cambridge State School and Hospital, Cambridge, Minnesota

In immature C mice exposed first to alternating 12 hr of light and 12 hr of darkness (LD), and maintained thereafter in constant darkness for several days, the circadian rhythms in hepatic and pinnal mitosis are demonstrable by spot checks made at the approximate times of LD-synchronized peak and trough. Spot checks at same times in mice of same stock and age, kept for several days in constant light, reveal the cell division rhythm of liver parenchyma, but not that of pinnal epidermis. In immature D₈ mice kept for several days in constant darkness, rhythms in hepatic mitosis, phospholipid, ribonucleic and deoxyribonucleic acid metabolism persist, while cell division rhythm in ear pinna of same animals is not detectable with the particular spot check used. In mice of same stock and age, on the 4th day in constant light, a significant rhythm persists in the relative specific activity of the hepatic phospholipid; timing of this metabolic cellular rhythm is drastically desynchronized from the reference standard of a 24-hr clock. Data reveal persistence of some mitotic and metabolic circadian rhythms under conditions studied, with phase drifts or phase shifts of these rhythms occurring both in relation to the 24-hr clock and among the rhythms themselves. These changes in external and internal timing of a circadian system are more extensive in constant light than in constant darkness.