Open AccessCircadian clock during plant development
Author(s) -
Kenzo Inoue,
Takashi Araki,
Motomu Endo
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of plant research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.795
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1618-0860
pISSN - 0918-9440
DOI - 10.1007/s10265-017-0991-8
Subject(s) - biology , circadian clock , circadian rhythm , bacterial circadian rhythms , biological clock , adaptation (eye) , oscillating gene , chronobiology , evolutionary biology , light effects on circadian rhythm , period (music) , ecology , neuroscience , physics , acoustics
Plants have endogenous biological clocks that allow organisms to anticipate and prepare for daily and seasonal environmental changes and increase their fitness in changing environments. The circadian clock in plants, as in animals and insects, mainly consists of multiple interlocking transcriptional/translational feedback loops. The circadian clock can be entrained by environmental cues such as light, temperature and nutrient status to synchronize internal biological rhythms with surrounding environments. Output pathways link the circadian oscillator to various physiological, developmental, and reproductive processes for adjusting the timing of these biological processes to an appropriate time of day or a suitable season. Recent genomic studies have demonstrated that polymorphism in circadian clock genes may contribute to local adaptations over a wide range of latitudes in many plant species. In the present review, we summarize the circadian regulation of biological processes throughout the life cycle of plants, and describe the contribution of the circadian clock to local adaptation.