The Core-Clock Gene Impacts Cell Motility In Vitro and Invasiveness in A Zebrafish Xenograft Colon Cancer Model.

Malfunctions of circadian clock trigger abnormal cellular processes and influence tumorigenesis. Using an and xenograft model, we show that circadian clock disruption via the downregulation of the core-clock genes , , and impacts the circadian phenotype of , , and , and affects proliferation, apoptosis, and cell migration. In particular, both our and results suggest an impairment of cell motility and a reduction in micrometastasis formation upon knockdown of , accompanied by altered expression levels of and . Interestingly we show that differential proliferation and reduced tumour growth may be due to the additional influence of the host-clock and/or to the 3D tumour architecture. Our results raise new questions concerning host-tumour interaction and show that core-clock genes are involved in key cancer properties, including the regulation of cell migration and invasion by in zebrafish xenografts.