Lego clocks: building a clock from parts

摘要

A new finding opens up speculation that the molecular mechanism of circadian clocks in Synechococcus elongatus is composed of multiple oscillator systems (Kitayama and colleagues, this issue, pp. 1513–1521), as has been described in many eukaryotic clock model systems. However, an alternative intepretation is that the pacemaker mechanism—as previously suggested—lies primarily in the rate of ATP hydrolysis by the clock protein KaiC.