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Biological rhythms

Circadian clocks limited by noise

Nature volume 403, pages 267–268 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Circadian rhythms, which provide internal daily periodicity, are used by a wide range of organisms to anticipate daily changes in the environment1. It seems that these organisms generate circadian periodicity by similar biochemical networks within a single cell2. A model based on the common features of these biochemical networks shows that a circadian network can oscillate reliably in the presence of stochastic biochemical noise and when cellular conditions are altered. We propose that the ability to resist such perturbations imposes strict constraints on the oscillation mechanisms underlying circadian periodicity in vivo.

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Figure 1: The hysteresis-based oscillation mechanism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Physics and Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, New Jersey, USA

    Naama Barkai & Stanislas Leibler

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  1. Naama Barkai
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  2. Stanislas Leibler
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Correspondence to Stanislas Leibler.

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Barkai, N., Leibler, S. Circadian clocks limited by noise. Nature 403, 267–268 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35002258

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