Mammalian circadian clocks restrict cell proliferation to defined time windows, but the mechanism and consequences of this interrelationship are not fully understood. Previously we identified the multifunctional nuclear protein NONO as a partner of circadian PE-RIOD (PER) proteins. Here we show that it also conveys circadian gating to the cell cycle, a connection surprisingly important for wound healing in mice. Specifically, although fibroblasts from NONO-deficient mice showed approximately normal circadian cycles, they displayed elevated cell doubling and lower cellular senescence. At a molecular level, NONO bound to the p16-Ink4A cell cycle checkpoint gene and potentiated its circadian activation in a PER proteindependent fashion. Loss of either NONO or PER abolished this activation and circadian expression of p16-Ink4A and eliminated circadian cell cycle gating. In vivo, lack of NONO resulted in defective wound repair. Because wound healing defects were also seen in multiple circadian clock-deficient mouse lines, our results therefore suggest that coupling of the cell cycle to the circadian clock via NONO may be useful to segregate in temporal fashion cell proliferation from tissue organization.keratinocyte | p54nrb | RNA-binding protein | paraspeckle protein T he circadian clock adapts organisms to their daily surroundings both behaviorally and physiologically. In animals, not only are complex behaviors such as sleep and mood governed by this oscillator, but also different body functions such as digestion, circulation, and respiration (1). The basic mechanism of this clock is cell-autonomous in all studied species possessing a circadian clock. In mammals, individual clocks in most cells are synchronized by a brain "master clock" in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus to orchestrate all rhythmic physiology (2). On a cellular level, circadian physiology extends even to processes such as proliferation (3-7), apoptosis (8), and DNA damage repair (6, 9), which are thought to play important roles in cancer control (8,10).In individual cells, the circadian clock mechanism consists of oscillating feedback loops of transcription of "core" oscillator genes and posttranslational modifications of their protein products that regulate protein stability, activity, and/or localization. For example, in mammals the transcription of periods (Per) and cryptochomes (Cry) are activated by BMAL1:CLOCK heterodimers at cisacting elements called E-boxes, and their protein products form complexes that repress their own transcription (11). We originally identified the RNA-binding protein NONO (also called p54nrb) biochemically as a new member of this circadian transcriptional repressor complex in mice, and mutation of its ortholog NonA in flies resulted in severe attenuation of circadian rhythmicity (12). However, apart from its interaction with this circadian repressor complex, NONO's mechanism of action within the clock remains unknown.The mechanism of the cell cycle has been reviewed extensively elsewhere (13,14). Rathe...