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A Retrospective: On Disproving the Transcription–Translation Feedback Loop Model in Cyanobacteria

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Circadian Rhythms in Bacteria and Microbiomes

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Abstract

The transcription–translation feedback model has had a huge impact on the study of biological clocks. The study of the cyanobacterial circadian system has defied this influential model and set a milestone in chronobiology with the establishment of the in vitro reconstituted oscillator system. As a researcher who had the good fortune to witness this turning point, I would like to review the process from a very personal perspective. I have been strongly influenced by science studies, especially the history and philosophy of science: indeed, my main reason for choosing the biological clock as my research topic in the first place was my interest in its scientific-philosophical and cultural-historical implications. History is always destined to be recorded by those who remain and is always subject to bias. If this same topic was recalled by, e.g., Takao Kondo, Carl Johnson, or anyone else who was engaged in the same events, it would probably be described completely differently. I would appreciate it if you read this chapter with that perspective in mind.

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Acknowledgments

There are many colleagues and collaborators to whom I owe a debt of gratitude, but I would like to thank initially Takao Kondo, Masahiro Ishiura, Carl Johnson, and Susan Golden for pioneering the field and guiding me in the early days. Until around 2003, there was active interaction among these groups, especially among students, and we had a habit of showing each other manuscripts before they were submitted. When I think about it now, it was an honor for me to have my first manuscript very carefully corrected by Susan even though she was not an author. Without the friendly collaboration with Takao Kondo, Shinsuke Kutsuna, Taeko Nishiwaki, Jun Tomita, Masato Nakajima, Yohko Kitayama, Keiko Imai, Hakuto Kageyama, Hiroshi Ito, Kazuki Terauchi, and other excellent teammates, the results I have described here would not have been possible. Also, Tetsuya Mori, Akira Matsumoto, Till Roenneberg, Martha Merrow, Pat Lakin-Thomas, and Hiroki Ueda, with whom I discussed possibilities outside of the TTFL, were my few comrades at the time. I would like to thank them for their support. I thank Taeko and Jun for kindly providing copies of their valuable notebook for this chapter. Finally, I thank Carl for reading the manuscript carefully with valuable comments, and Taeko for providing detailed information on the process of in vitro reconstitution studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Bioscience, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Hideo Iwasaki

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  1. Hideo Iwasaki
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Correspondence to Hideo Iwasaki .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Carl Hirschie Johnson

  2. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Michael Joseph Rust

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Iwasaki, H. (2021). A Retrospective: On Disproving the Transcription–Translation Feedback Loop Model in Cyanobacteria. In: Johnson, C.H., Rust, M.J. (eds) Circadian Rhythms in Bacteria and Microbiomes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72158-9_3

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