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Chronobiology Lab
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The lab explores how the circadian clocks of plants and cyanobacteria work.
AboutAbout the lab
How do plants keep time?
The Morphological Regulation Division (Chronobiology Group) studies the mechanisms of the circadian clock in plants and cyanobacteria.
From the perspective of cellular clocks, the lab examines what kind of temporal regulation operates at each level of the plant: whole organism, organ, tissue, and cell.
The lab also works on the diversity of photoperiodism, which makes plants flower according to the season, on developing reporter systems that use bioluminescence, and on interactions between plants and bacteria.
Key terms
- Circadian clock
- A biological internal clock that keeps a rhythm of about 24 hours
- Photoperiodism
- The property by which an organism senses changes in the length of day and night and, for example, decides when to flower
- Cyanobacteria
- A group of photosynthetic bacteria. They are the only prokaryotes with a circadian clock
ResearchResearch themes
The lab studies the hierarchy of plant circadian clock systems, the diversity of photoperiodic responses, the development of bioluminescent reporter systems, the diversity of circadian clocks in cyanobacteria, and plant-bacteria interactions.
*Illustrative imageHierarchy of the Circadian Clock System
The circadian clock, which keeps time on a cycle of about one day, is an oscillator that each individual cell possesses. From the perspective of cellular clocks, the lab studies what kind of temporal regulation operates at each level of the plant: whole organism, organ, tissue, and cell.
*Illustrative imageDiversity of Photoperiodic Responses
Photoperiodic responses are the mechanism that determines when a plant flowers according to the season, but their properties differ greatly even within the same species. The lab investigates this diversity in duckweeds collected from various regions.
*Illustrative imageDevelopment of Bioluminescent Reporter Systems
The lab develops reporter systems that use bioluminescence, so that various physiological phenomena observed at the level of gene expression, including circadian rhythms, can be examined in living organisms in both time and space.
*Illustrative imageDiversity of Clocks in Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes with a robust circadian clock, yet some species have lost essential clock genes. The lab aims to elucidate the evolutionary pathways that produced this diversity by examining changes in the sequences and functions of clock components.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Chronobiology Group are faculty, doctoral and master's students, fourth-year undergraduates, and technical and academic assistants.As of 2026
- Associate ProfessorTokitaka Oyama
- Assistant ProfessorShogo Ito
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Synechococcus PCC 7002 DIC” Masur / Public domain (cropped)
- Hierarchy of the Circadian Clock System: “The master circadian clock in the human brain” Ian B Hickie, Sharon L Naismith, Rébecca Robillard, Elizabeth M Scott, and Daniel F Hermens / CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
- Diversity of Photoperiodic Responses: “Phenology ( )” Nicholas A. Tonelli from Northeast Pennsylvania, USA / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Development of Bioluminescent Reporter Systems: “Bioluminescence Schematic in Firefly Squid” Frederick I. Tsuji / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Diversity of Clocks in Cyanobacteria: “Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus cultures” Allison Coe / CC0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Photophysical Chemistry Lab): “Innerworkings of a thylakoid” OpenStax College, Biology / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Nakano Lab, Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University): “Otsu Omi-jingu View to Lake Biwa 1” Zairon / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Molecular Biological Information Lab): “Mouse cone and rabbit rod nuclei” Irina Solovei, Moritz Kreysing, Christian Lanctôt, Süleyman Kösem, Leo Peichl, Thomas Cremer, Jochen Guck, Boris Joffe / CC BY 2.5 (cropped)
- Related lab (Animal Behavior Lab): “Rhabdophis tigrinus 5778854” Kim, Hyun-tae / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
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