Keeping the daily clock ticking in a fluctuating environment: Hints from a green alga
Researchers in France have uncovered a mechanism which explains how biological clocks accurately synchronise to the day/night cycle despite large fluctuations in light intensity during the day and from day to day. Following the identification of two central 'clock genes' of a green alga, Ostreococcus tauri, a mathematical model reproducing their daily activity profiles has revealed that their internal clock is influenced by the naturally varying light levels throughout the day only at periods when it needs resetting. The results found by the biologists at Oceanologic Observatory of Universite Paris 6 in Banyuls, France, physicists at Universite Lille 1, France, together with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, are published November 11 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology...