Characterization of circadian systems at the organism level—a top-down approach—has led to definition of unifying properties, a hallmark of the science of chronobiology. The next challenge is to use a bottom-up approach to show how the molecular workings of the cellular circadian clock work as building blocks of those properties. We review new studies, including a recently published PLOS Biology paper by Nikhil and colleagues, that show how programmed but also stochastic generation of variation in cellular circadian period explain important adaptive features of entrained circadian phase.

中文翻译：

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细胞生物钟异质性的功能背景

在有机体水平上表征昼夜节律系统——一种自上而下的方法——导致了统一特性的定义，这是时间生物学科学的标志。下一个挑战是使用自下而上的方法来展示细胞生物钟的分子运作如何作为这些特性的构建块。我们回顾了新的研究，包括 Nikhil 及其同事最近发表的PLOS 生物学论文，该论文展示了细胞昼夜节律周期中程序化但随机产生的变异如何解释夹带昼夜节律阶段的重要适应性特征。