Abstract
Earlier sections of this book have established that circadian systems are complicated. With this section, we try to cut through the complexity to the basic molecular issues defining and governing circadian timing at the biochemical level. We recall the three great questions in circadian biology: (1)Input—howdo environmental signals reset the clock? (2)The oscillator—whatare the gears and cogs in the feedback loop generating time and how is the loop assembled? (3)Output—howis time information that is generated by the clock then transduced to effect changes in the behavior of the organism? Answers to all of these questions are attainable at the level of proteins, RNAs, genes, and small molecules. It is widely accepted as a tenet of circadian biology that intercellular communication plays no obligate role in the generation of circadian rhythmicity, although it is surely involved in the entrainment and expression of rhythms in multicellular organisms. Clearly the cell is the basic unit timer. Current work on prototypic cellular circadian systems promises to establish the paradigms that will govern the way we approach the molecular dissection of more complex systems in the same way that Pittendrigh’s early work on the resetting responses ofDrosophila pseudoobscuragoverned the way an entire generation thought about how to determine the formal characteristics of circadian pacemakers. Thus, model systems are of interest not only because that tell us concretely how more complex systems will work, but also because they teach us how to think about problems in more complex systems.
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Dunlap, J.C., Loros, J.J. (2001). Molecular Genetics of Circadian Rhythms in Neurospora, a Prototypic Circadian System. In: Takahashi, J.S., Turek, F.W., Moore, R.Y. (eds) Circadian Clocks. Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology, vol 12. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1201-1_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1201-1_13
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