title: Timing the day: what makes bacterial clocks tick?
abstract: Chronobiological studies of prokaryotic organisms have generally lagged far behind the study of endogenous circadian clocks in eukaryotes, in which such systems are essentially ubiquitous. However, despite only being studied during the past 25 years, cyanobacteria have become important model organisms for the study of circadian rhythms and, presently, their timekeeping mechanism is the best understood of any system in terms of biochemistry, structural biology, biophysics and adaptive importance. Nevertheless, intrinsic daily rhythmicity among bacteria other than cyanobacteria is essentially unknown; some tantalizing information suggests widespread daily timekeeping among Eubacteria and Archaea through mechanisms that share common elements with the cyanobacterial clock but are distinct. Moreover, the recent surge of information about microbiome-host interactions has largely neglected the temporal dimension and yet daily cycles control important aspects of their relationship.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 465 21st Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA.
authors.forename: Carl Hirschie
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 465 21st Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA.
authors.forename: Chi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 465 21st Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 465 21st Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA.
authors.forename: Tetsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mori
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D057906:Circadian Clocks / Q000502:physiology*; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D056925:Circadian Rhythm Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000502:physiology*; D008027:Light
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D056925:Circadian Rhythm Signaling Peptides and Proteins; C114269:KaiA protein, cyanobacteria; C114270:KaiB protein, cyanobacteria; C114271:KaiC protein, cyanobacteria