Circadian clocks allow organisms to anticipate environmental changes associated with the diurnal light/dark cycle. Circadian oscillators have been described in plants and green algae, cyanobacteria, animals, and fungi, however, little is known about the circadian clocks of photosynthetic eukaryotes outside the green lineage. Stramenopiles are a diverse group of secondary endosymbionts whose plastid originated from a red alga. Photosynthetic stramenopiles, which include diatoms and brown algae, play key roles in biogeochemical cycles and are important components of marine ecosystems. Genome annotation efforts indicated the presence of a novel type of oscillator in these organisms and the first circadian clock component in a stramenopile has been recently discovered. This review summarizes the phenotypic characterization of circadian rhythms in stramenopiles and current efforts to determine the mechanisms of this 'brown clock'. The elucidation of this brown clock will enable a deeper understanding of the role of self-sustained oscillations in the adaptation to life in marine environments. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

中文翻译：

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棕色时钟：原生藻菌的昼夜节律

生物钟允许生物体预测与昼夜光/暗循环相关的环境变化。已经在植物和绿藻、蓝藻、动物和真菌中描述了昼夜节律振荡器，但是，对绿色谱系之外的光合真核生物的昼夜节律钟知之甚少。Stramenopiles 是一组多样化的次级内共生体，其质体起源于红藻。包括硅藻和褐藻在内的光合原生藻菌在生物地球化学循环中起着关键作用，是海洋生态系统的重要组成部分。基因组注释工作表明这些生物体中存在一种新型振荡器，并且最近发现了原生藻菌中的第一个生物钟组件。这篇综述总结了原生藻菌昼夜节律的表型特征，以及目前确定这种“棕色时钟”机制的努力。阐明这个棕色时钟将使人们更深入地了解自持振荡在适应海洋环境中的生命中的作用。本文受版权保护。版权所有。