On the robustness of the in vivo cyanobacterial circadian clock

TL;DR

This paper revisits the cyanobacterial circadian clock model, introducing an in vitro approach that enhances robustness and accurately reproduces mutant oscillations without precise parameter tuning.

Contribution

It presents a revised in vivo model based on an in vitro structure, improving robustness predictions for mutant cyanobacteria.

Findings

Model reproduces mutant oscillations experimentally observed

Enhanced robustness without fine-tuning parameters

In vitro structural details improve circadian clock modeling

Abstract

We propose a revisited version of the in vivo model of the cyanobacterial circadian clock. Our aim is to address the lack of robustness predicted for the mutant cyanobacteria without transcriptional regulation of the original model. For this, we rely on an in vitro model of the clock describing explicitly the hexameric structure of the core protein of the clock. Our model is able to reproduce oscillatory behavior for the mutant, as observed experimentally, without finely tuned parameters.