Disruption of thyroid-intrinsic clock aggravates experimental autoimmune thyroiditis.

The core clock gene Bmal1 has been associated with the development of a variety of inflammatory diseases, with its deletion shown to induce or aggravate autoimmune disease in a tissue-specific pattern. Building on our previous findings that light shift can disrupt thyroid clock and exacerbate autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT), we investigated the specific role of the thyroid clock in AIT using a thyrocyte-specific Bmal1 knockdown mouse model (cKO). Our study revealed that Bmal1 knockdown in thyrocytes disrupted the rhythmic expression of intrathyroidal clock genes.