Oscillators articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current methods to assess circadian biological parameters can be labor intensive. Here, the authors establish a method for estimating circadian entrainment characteristics using simple experiments and mathematical modeling, revealing the responsiveness of circadian rhythms to diverse stimuli in the mammalian circadian clock.

    • Kosaku Masuda
    • , Naohiro Kon
    •  & Arisa Hirano

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mammalian circadian clock is composed of clock genes forming transcriptional feedback loops. Here, the authors identify a key role of the secondary feedback loop that is interlocked with the core loop to establish a perturbation-resilient clock system.

    • Yasuko O. Abe
    • , Hikari Yoshitane
    •  & Yoshitaka Fukada

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Ca2+ modulated pulsatile glucagon and insulin secretions by pancreatic α and β cells are critical in glucose homeostasis. Here the authors show that the Ca2+ oscillations of α and β cells are phase-locked, and that the oscillation pattern is tuned by paracrine interactions between α and β cells.

    • Huixia Ren
    • , Yanjun Li
    •  & Chao Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animals must reach the correct size during development, despite stochastic differences in their growth rate. Here, Stojanovski et al. show that a coupling of growth and development by an oscillatory timer buffers fluctuations in the growth of the nematode C. elegans to ensure its correct size.

    • Klement Stojanovski
    • , Helge Großhans
    •  & Benjamin D. Towbin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phase response curves reveal how biological clocks respond to stimuli applied during different circadian phases but can be costly to produce. Here Masuda et al. show that phase response curves for plants can be reconstructed by monitoring how a desynchronized population responds to a single stimulus.

    • Kosaku Masuda
    • , Isao T. Tokuda
    •  & Hirokazu Fukuda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are many examples of cell populations exhibiting density-dependent collective oscillatory behaviour. Here, the authors show that sustained collective oscillations emerge when cells anticipate variation in signal and attempt to amplify it, a property that can be linked to adaptation.

    • Shou-Wen Wang
    •  & Lei-Han Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is becoming clear that the dynamics of transcription factors may be important for gene regulation. Here, the authors study the implications of oscillatory and chaotic dynamics of NF-κB and demonstrate that it allows a degree of control of gene expression and can generate phenotypic heterogeneity.

    • Mathias L. Heltberg
    • , Sandeep Krishna
    •  & Mogens H. Jensen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biochemical processes require both high sensitivity and low fluctuation which is incompatible with the fluctuation dissipation theorem. Here Fei et al. model biochemical oscillators to show how free energy dissipation leads to both a suppression of phase fluctuation and an enhancement of phase sensitivity.

    • Chenyi Fei
    • , Yuansheng Cao
    •  & Yuhai Tu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) has been thought of as the master circadian clock, but peripheral circadian clocks do exist. Here, the authors show that the choroid plexus displays oscillations more robust than the SCN and that can be described as a Poincaré oscillator with negative twist.

    • Jihwan Myung
    • , Christoph Schmal
    •  & Toru Takumi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The prolonged presence of cytokines is necessary to produce a robust pro-inflammatory response through the activation of p38 MAPK. Here, Tomidaet al. show that asynchronous oscillatory activation of p38 MAPK occurs at the single-cell level and is necessary for the proper expression of pro-inflammatory genes.

    • Taichiro Tomida
    • , Mutsuhiro Takekawa
    •  & Haruo Saito

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