What is a circadian clock?
A circadian clock is an internal biological clock that is found in almost all organisms, which regulates many metabolic processes. This biological clock allows organisms to adjust physiologically to changes in the environment. It is also influential in an organism’s behavior based on environmental differences.
What do circadian clocks regulate?
In plants, circadian clocks control flowering, response to seasons, and photosynthesis such as the opening and closing of the stomata.
In mammals, circadian clocks manage sleeping, waking, feeding, and controlling whether an animal is nocturnal (most active at night) or diurnal (most active during the day).
In cyanobacteria, circadian clocks regulate nitrogen fixation.
In general, circadian clocks direct cell replication, amino acid uptake, and carbohydrate synthesis.
Why are circadian clocks important?
Circadian clocks are an integral part of everyday life for most all organisms on Earth. They regulate the most important functions in each organism. Without these biological clocks, processes such as metabolism would be completely disorganized and all of our bodies would go entirely awry. Life as we know it today would not exist in the regular predictable pattern.
It’s as easy as Kai A, B, C!
General Info about Cyanobacteria: (the organisms studied in this experiment)
* Cyanobacteria are among the oldest organisms on Earth
* They are very diverse: different species of cyanobacteria can survive in a broad range of environmental conditions
* Even though cyanobacteria are unicellular, they perform many metabolic activities: photosynthesis, carbon fixation, and nitrogen fixation
* Their circadi...
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...rol the growth of tumors. Studies like this may eventually even lead to a cure for cancer!
References
Ditty, J.L, S.B. Williams and S.S. Golden. 2003. "A Cyanobacterial Circadian Timing Mechanism." The Annual Review of Genetics 37:513-517. Available at .
Golden, Susan S. 2003. "Timekeeping in bacteria: the cyanobacterial circadian clock." Current Opinion in Microbiology 6:535-540. Available at .
Johnson, Carl H. and Martin Egli. 2004."Visualizing a biological clockwork's cogs." Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 11(7):584-585. Available at .
Vakonakis, Ionannis and Andy C. LiWang. 2004. "Structure of the C-terminal domain of the clock protein KaiA in complex with a KaiC-derived peptide: Implications for KaiC regulation." PNAS 101(30):10925-10930. Available at .
There are many ways in which scientists and researchers try to understand the molecular uniqueness and physiology of living organisms. One of these ways is the Circadian clock, this clock transfers the physiology and behaviors of mammalians into rhythms that are coordinated with the 24hr solar system. This system can be affected by environmental factors such as the food, temperature and parasites. The circadian rhythms play a role in gene expression to produce protein. Gene expression is displayed through the central dogma of (DNA RNA protein). How the clock work with the 24hr solar day is that it allows gene expression every 24hr to tell when a physiological process is most active. And any damage made to the DNA is more effective
4. Circadian Cancer Therapy. William J. M. Hrushesky, Ed. CRC Press, Inc., MI, 1994. pp 3-9, 279-281.
The body and brain are changing machines, where states of consciousness shift with zealous nature to allow our human anatomy to flourish. Schedules of the circadian rhythm function differently for everyone yet, is an important part of functioning for the human anatomy/mind. For the average person, however, the cycles we go through usually speak for a sleep rotation. But sometimes, even with these measured rituals, we find ourselves at a loss when we realize how fragile our circadian rhythm can be, caused by "insomnia," " jet-lag, " or even "weekend-lag."
During the winter quarter of 2014, biology 155 students examined for one week circadian body rhythms during “normal” activity and rest periods. The students had to go to sleep between 10 and 12 o’clock, wake up around 6 and 8 in the morning and had to do usual activities for it to be considered a “normal” day in a week’s period. During a 24 hour period students had to interrupt their “normal” sleep period in order to collect some data. Every 2 hours, 12 times in total, three function tests were conducted in the same order and had to be written do...
The website The Atlantic says teens gave these “internal clocks”, the circadian rhythm controls a human's stimuli and determines their sleep patterns. The patterns varies within age groups.
Circadian rhythms also known as sleep/wake cycle or body clock, is a natural, internal system that is designed to regulate our feelings
As a species, Cyanobacteria are chemically diverse, and owe their bluish colour to the pigment phycocyanin, which is used to capture light for photosynthesis. Because they are able to photosynthesize, they are able to...
The oldest known photosynthesisers were small aquatic bacteria, such as cyanobacteria and Halobacterium halobium. Biomarkers indicate organisms similar to cyanobacteria were present 2.7 billion years ago [5], and other archaeological fossils have been shown as evidence of photosynthesis at this early stage of Earth’s development. Cyanobacteria, like modern plants, use the energy of the sun to power their photosynthesis, and can photosynthesise in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. [6] Cyanobacteria were one of the first organisms to produce oxygen. This newly produced oxygen was toxic to a majority of the other species of organism at the time, causing extinction. It was also responsible for the production of an ozone atmosphere [7].
The circadian rhythm is a predictable pattern that a species follows during a twenty-four-hour cycle. Circadian rhythms of species are associated with the external cues, which can be factors like sunlight, moisture, and temperature. When mammals are presented with an environment that does not have many external cues, the expectations are that there would be a weak or no evidence of a circadian rhythm. Contrary to this expectation, subterranean rodents have shown evidence of circadian rhythm, even though the environment they live in has few external cues. Prior scientific research done by other scientists indicated that the rodents acted in a predictable manner due to heat regulation against the hot and cold. In this study, the authors looked at the Ansell’s mole-rat (Fukomys anselli) to better understand whether social or environmental cues were more important in the creation of the circadian rhythm. Through this experiment, the authors attempted to answer five questions: is there a noticeable circadian rhythm that Fukomys anselli follows, is the circadian rhythm emerging due to the temperature of the environment, is the circadian rhythm emerging due to social effects, are Fukomys
Anxiety is common in America, and can be easily aggravated by daylight savings. The fear of forgetting to change the clock or being late to something important as a result of not changing the clock can turn into constant worry and be unhealthy. Also, people with memory loss, such as those who have had accidents or have early stages of Alzheimer’s, have trouble remembering to change their clocks which can have negative effects on their work and home
Sleeping is a complex process that greatly affects an individual’s well-being. There exists within each person a natural body clock which allows one to operate at a 24 hour cycle. In relevance, the body clock iswhat instinctively determines the cycle of sleep and awake time of a person. This relates to sleep because the issues that affect one’s body clock has a connection ...
The idea of phase advance and delay were first proposed by Aschoff and Pittendrigh (1960), but subsequent genetic studies have shown exact genes involved in phase delay and advance occurs due to over or under production of proteins as described in dorsophilia studies. Many knock out studies have shown that disruption of genes involve in circadian rhythm have created arrythmicity in animals. Low-Zeddies and Takahashi (2001), created clock mutants which were arrhythmic when exposed to dark condition. The period of clock mutants were greater when compared to wildtype mice. The mutant also showed higher phase-shifts hours and lower circadian amplitude.
The energy extracted today by the burning of coal and petroleum products represents sunlight energy captured and stored by photosynthesis almost 200 million years ago. A third very interesting group of bacteria synthesize sugars, not by using sunlight’s energy, but by extracting energy from inorganic chemical compounds; In a (d) deep sea vent, chemoautotrophs, such as these (e) thermophilic bacteria, capture energy from inorganic compounds to produce organic compounds.
With the mentor Rekha Balachandran, her research project is astonishing to me due to the concentration on circadian rhythm. As my background in psychology and biology, I have acknowledged that circadian rhythm is known to play a significant role in human physiological wellness. Disruption in circadian rhythm could affect metabolism poorly with the involvement of eating disorder as well as difficulties in storing information in short-term memory; improper functioni...
In a majority of circadian rhythms there seems to be major components which include an endogenous component (which is regulated by an internal clock located in the hypothalamus) and an exogenous component. This exogenous component is made up of different clues in time in the world around us....