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Circadian rhythms

As time glows by in bacteria

Nature volume 430, pages 23–24 (2004)Cite this article

Populations of cells can exhibit remarkably precise and stable circadian oscillations. But can single cells achieve such precision in the absence of intercellular communication? For cyanobacteria, it seems so.

Have you ever heard of a bacterium with jet lag? The idea might seem absurd; 20 years ago, experts in the field would have thought so too. Bacterial cells were believed to be just too ‘simple’ to have the biological clocks necessary to regulate daily (circadian) rhythms of gene expression, physiology and behaviour1. But things have come a long way since then. We now know that cyanobacteria — also known as blue-green algae — have a robust circadian clock system that regulates the expression of all the genes in the organism. In fact, these bacteria are on the cutting edge of research into biological clocks, especially as regards structural studies of clock proteins and rigorous assessments of the evolutionary significance of circadian rhythms. And their utility looks set to continue: on page 81 of this issue, Mihalcescu and co-workers2 report data that spotlight cyanobacteria as a new model system for the analysis of circadian rhythms in single cells.

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Figure 1: Monitoring circadian rhythms with self-luminescent cyanobacteria10.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, 37235, Nashville, USA

    Carl Hirschie Johnson

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Johnson, C. As time glows by in bacteria. Nature 430, 23–24 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/430023a

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