TY - JOUR T1 - Adaptive Temperature Compensation in Circadian Oscillations A1 - François, Paul A1 - Despierre, Nicolas A1 - Siggia, Eric D. Y1 - 2012/07/12 N2 - Author Summary Circadian clocks are biological oscillators which evolved to couple the internal rhythm of animals, plants and even some bacteria to the alternation of light and day. Circadian oscillators are temperature compensated, i.e. they keep a 24-h period irrespective of the temperature of the organism. This is surprising, since many biochemical parameters, including average concentration of clock proteins, vary with temperature. From dynamical system theory, we therefore expect changes in both period and relative lengths of features in the phase response curve which are not seen. We couple mathematical modelling and computational evolution of gene networks to formulate a novel explanation for temperature compensation that accords better with experimental facts than alternatives. Our model has deep mathematical connections with the process of biochemical adaptation, by which cells respond to temporal gradients of signals rather than their absolute value. JF - PLOS Computational Biology JA - PLOS Computational Biology VL - 8 IS - 7 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002585 SP - e1002585 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002585 ER -