ABSTRACT
In humans, the regulation of growth, metabolic homeostasis, and development processes involve extensive intercellular communication. This is achieved by various endocrine signals that often communicate with intracellular receptors that regulate gene expression. In this latter process, transcription factors, specifically nuclear hormone receptors, participate in the up- or down-regulation of gene expression. Nuclear hormone receptors are ligand-inducible transcription factors that mediate changes to whole-body metabolic pathways. Energy availability provides an essential groundwork for the basic clockwork functionality of the human body particularly, with regard to metabolically demanding processes such as reproduction, immune function, and cell replication. As such, disease states involving these processes may be underpinned by disturbances in biological clocks as demonstrated in preclinical models. This can be seen as the dissonance of lifestyle in humans with disease from the natural light-dark cycle as well as redox disturbances that accompany impaired free energy.
