Spatiotemporal variation of metabolism in a plant circadian rhythm: the biological clock as an assembly of coupled individual oscillators.

ABSTRACT: The complex dynamic properties of biological timing in organisms remain a central enigma in biology despite the increasingly precise genetic characterization of oscillating units and their components. Although attempts to obtain the time constants from oscillations of gene activity and biochemical units have led to substantial progress, we are still far from a full molecular understanding of endogenous rhythmicity and the physiological manifestations of biological clocks. Applications of nonlinear dynamics have revolutionized thinking in physics and in biomedical and life sciences research, and spatiotemporal considerations are now advancing our understanding of development and rhythmicity. Here we show that the well known circadian rhythm of a metabolic cycle in a higher plant, namely the

SUBMITTER: Rascher U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC58811 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature