The effects of the circadian clock on cell cycle regulation in cyanobacteria

The circadian clock affects the timing of cell divisions in cyanobacteria such that cells tend not to divide near dawn or dusk. The mechanism underlying the coupling between the clock and division remains unclear. We developed a phenomenological model that captures the single-cell statistics of the timing of cell divisions in the cyanobacteria Synechococcus elongatus. The model reproduces experimental results for both the wildtype and a clock-deletion mutant, in constant as well as periodic environments. We further study, within the model, how coupling division to the clock may affect the fitness of the population as a whole.