Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Systems biology of cellular rhythms: from cacophony to symphony Editorial overview Jeff Hasty, Alexander Hoffmann and Susan Golden Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 2010, 20:571–573 0959-437X/$ – see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd. DOI 10.1016/j.gde.2010.10.003 Jeff Hasty1,2,3 Biological oscillations are ubiquitous. From the rhythmic behavior of the 1 BioCircuits Institute, University of California pumping heart to the firing of neurons and the cycling of intercellular and – San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA intracellular signaling, it is clear that a fundamental dynamical principle in 2 San Diego Center for Systems Biology, University of California – San Diego, La Jolla, CA biology is oscillation. In the context of gene regulation and cellular signaling, 92093, USA circadian rhythms and the cell cycle reign as ‘classical’ examples of oscil- 3 Center for Chronobiology, University of latory behavior. These systems are often couched in the framework of California – San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA natural selection, whereby a periodic drive has served as a selection e-mail: [email protected] mechanism for the evolution of networks that govern rhythmic cellular responses. Similarly, periodic signals generated by cells may function to Jeff Hasty is a Professor in the departments of Molecular Biology and Bioengineering and organize individual cells into a coordinated function. In the field of signal Director of the BioCircuits Institute. His Systems transduction, dynamical control of signaling mediators may be considered in Biodynamics Lab focuses on the design, the framework of information processing to tailor stimulus-specific cellular construction and characterization of genetic responses. Indeed, understanding dynamical behavior of molecular net- circuits for synthetic biology. works is a key challenge in the field of systems biology. High throughput Alexander Hoffmann4,5 approaches have led to the diagrammatic reconstruction of large-scale net- 4 BioCircuits Institute, University of California works that underlie the complexity of cellular regulation. These efforts have – San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA led to the enumeration of small network motifs, and perhaps unsurprisingly, 5 San Diego Center for Systems Biology, University of California – San Diego, La Jolla, CA negative feedback is extremely common. As is widely appreciated in 92093, USA engineering and physics, the coupling of such negative feedback with e-mail: [email protected] the time delays that are inherent in biological networks naturally leads to oscillatory behavior. From this vantage point, the relevant question may not Alexander Hoffmann is a Professor of Chemistry be whether cellular networks have the capacity to oscillate, but what the and Biochemistry and Director of the San Diego underlying mechanistic design principles are that amplify or reduce such Center for Systems Biology of Cellular Stress Responses. His Signaling Systems Laboratory oscillatory capacity and how these relate to biological function. focuses on the innate and adaptive immune system using experimental and computational A restricted focus on biological oscillations at the signaling and gene-regu- model systems to study the mechanisms latory levels is still overly broad. However, the dynamics that lead to such underlying complex dynamic cellular responses to pathogens. network rhythms provides a natural framework for efforts in the emerging area of what can be loosely termed as ‘quantitative biology’. Such efforts typically Susan Golden focus on the deduction of quantitative computational models and the de- Center for Chronobiology, University of velopment of measurement technologies aimed at characterizing the California – San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, dynamics of signaling and gene-regulation at the single-cell level. USA e-mail: [email protected] The articles presented here provide a broad overview of the current un- derstanding of dynamic biological behaviors, with particular focus on the Susan Golden is a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Director of UCSD’s Center for importance of probing and modeling the molecular networks that regulate Chronobiology. Her lab specializes in the complex biological functions. mechanisms that underlie circadian rhythms in cyanobacteria. Several recent studies have demonstrated that the dynamical behavior This issue is dedicated to the memory of Arthur of intracellular signals contains more information than was previously Winfree, who set in motion the dynamics of the understood. The health of cells and organisms depends on producing an field of quantitative cellular rhythms. appropriate response to these stimuli, and it is becoming clear that these www.sciencedirect.com Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 2010, 20:571–573 572 Genetics of system biology responses are tailored to the specific intensity, duration, that function in the plant circadian cycle before their and temporal program of the perceived signals. As biochemical or genetic description. demonstrated by the studies discussed by Behar et al., understanding how cells are able to decode these intricate Our understanding of other oscillating cellular processes signals will become an increasingly important undertak- has also benefitted from systems approaches. The refine- ing. In contrast to studying the dynamic response of ment of culture conditions for yeast that support 4-h cellular networks to external perturbations, the review by stable oscillations of metabolism has allowed researchers Metha et al. provides insight into the development of self- to combine analysis by transcriptomics, metabolomics, initiated dynamic behavior in cellular populations. As and in vivo reporters to assemble an unusually compre- collective behavior can be observed in a vast range of hensive view of the workings of a cell (Tu et al.). The cell biological systems, from individual microbial cells to cycle in budding and fission yeast is yielding important herds of antelopes, it is important to understand how data on how the feedback loops that control the cell cycle group behavior is organized and sustained. A great deal of are influenced by internal and external controls that recent research has focused on understanding collective coordinate cell division with cell size and morphologenic behavior. In particular, this review focuses on understand- checkpoints (Cross et al.). The role of coupling of oscil- ing the molecular origins of oscillatory behavior in cellular lators through a phase-lock mechanism is emerging, in populations and highlights the need to develop new which one oscillator can advance or delay the phase of experimental techniques to probe the links between peripheral oscillators to keep the network coupled. macroscopic behavior and underlying microscopic net- works. The coupling of the cell division and circadian cycles in a cyanobacterium has been described mathematically and In recent years great strides have been made in our elegantly, producing a model that is more broadly understanding of endogenous biological rhythms in applicable to coupled oscillations of distinct periodicities diverse organisms, largely due to technological advances in diverse organisms (Van Oudenaarden et al.). The that have enabled systems approaches. High throughput circadian mechanism in the cyanobacterium Synechocccus cell screening and comprehensive transcript, protein, and elongatus is a systems tour de force, in which genetics, metabolite profiles have made it possible to move away transcriptomics, cell biology, modeling, structural from reductionist methods to observe a cycling system as biology, and synthetic biology are informing a compre- a whole. hensive view of how a cell orchestrates its daily events (Dong et al.). Transcript profiling was the first such technology to revolutionize the systems-level view of circadian The review by Yamada et al. presents an overview of the rhythms, as is described in articles on the mammalian current understanding of mammalian circadian rhythms in (Hogenesch et al.) and plant circadian clocks (McClung the context of computational modeling. The authors et al.). Improved technologies and reduced costs have present a thorough introduction to circadian rhythms, made it possible to sample the mammalian transcriptome provide insight into the ways in which modeling may with greater time resolution, revealing more rhythmic advance our understanding of these robust oscillatory transcripts and oscillations of shorter frequencies than systems, and discuss the need to develop tools to help the circadian cycle (Hogenesch et al.). In plants transcrip- bridge the multiple spatial and temporal scales that these tome analyses have emphasized how pervasively the complex systems span. The review by Aubel et al. on clock controls plant physiology and metabolism synthetic oscillators presents an overview of the synthetic (McClung et al.). In both of these systems, large-scale biology approach to understanding genetic ‘clocks’. Over analyses of cycling transcripts have pointed to regulatory the past decade or so, several successful synthetic systems elements and transcription factors that might emerge only have been developed that are able to produce and sustain slowly, or not at all, in more classical searches. oscillatory behavior. As the designs and approaches have varied, each undertaking has provided new insight into High throughput screening has also accelerated the pace the various network motifs and design criteria