Circadian Gating of the Cell Cycle Revealed in Single Cyanobacterial Cells

Abstract

Cycle Entrainment Cells manage many cyclic processes that must coordinate with each other for best cellular performance. Yang et al. (p. 1522 ) present a general theoretical framework that quantitatively describes coupled cyclic processes and then apply this to the interaction between the circadian and cell-division cycles in single cyanobacteria. Simultaneously tracking individual cell divisions and circadian phases and fitting the data with the model suggest that cell-cycle progression slows down dramatically during a specific circadian interval, whereas cell-cycle progression is independent of the cell-cycle phase.