G C A T T A C G G C A T genes Review Epigenetic Regulation of Circadian Clocks and Its Involvement in Drug Addiction Lamis Saad 1,2,3, Jean Zwiller 1,4, Andries Kalsbeek 2,3 and Patrick Anglard 1,5,* 1 Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Adaptatives (LNCA), UMR 7364 CNRS, Université de Strasbourg, Neuropôle de Strasbourg, 67000 Strasbourg, France;
[email protected] (L.S.);
[email protected] (J.Z.) 2 The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), 1105 BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands;
[email protected] 3 Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Amsterdam University Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands 4 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 75016 Paris, France 5 Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), 75013 Paris, France * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +33-03-6885-2009 Abstract: Based on studies describing an increased prevalence of addictive behaviours in several rare sleep disorders and shift workers, a relationship between circadian rhythms and addiction has been hinted for more than a decade. Although circadian rhythm alterations and molecular mechanisms associated with neuropsychiatric conditions are an area of active investigation, success is limited so far, and further investigations are required. Thus, even though compelling evidence connects the circadian clock to addictive behaviour and vice-versa, yet the functional mechanism behind this interaction remains largely unknown. At the molecular level, multiple mechanisms have been proposed to link the circadian timing system to addiction. The molecular mechanism of the circadian Citation: Saad, L.; Zwiller, J.; clock consists of a transcriptional/translational feedback system, with several regulatory loops, that Kalsbeek, A.; Anglard, P.