Nature communicationsSep 24, 2026

The Body Clock’s Stable Temperature Control Is Closely Connected to Metabolism and Cellular Energy Signals

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗OA ↗

Updated Sep 26, 2026

Abstract

Circadian rhythms maintain a precise period across varying temperatures, highlighting a key biological phenomenon known as temperature compensation.

Circadian timekeepers may maintain a constant period through the sensing of metabolic activity.
Modulation of the core circadian mechanism is associated with metabolic feedback.
Intracellular sensing of redox states related to metabolism is essential for temperature compensation.
This relationship between metabolism and circadian timing is conserved across bacterial and mammalian cells.
The findings provide insight into the interactions between redox reactions and circadian rhythms.

Simplified

Circadian rhythms are a universal property of organisms, and a defining property of these oscillators is the ability to maintain a precise period at different temperatures. Indeed, the discovery in the 1950s of this property, known as "temperature compensation," was a watershed event in our understanding of biological timekeeping. Since that time, however, almost no general principles have emerged that uncover the mechanistic basis of how circadian timekeepers defy the "rules" of temperature dependence of biochemical reactions. A genetic investigation of circadian temperature compensation reveals that the sensing of metabolism and ensuing modulation of the core mechanism preserves a constant circadian period. Intracellular redox sensing of metabolic rate is intrinsic to this compensation, and this relationship is conserved in bacterial and mammalian cells. These insights explain previously inexplicable observations of the interaction between redox reactions and circadian timekeeping. These results introduce a previously unknown linkage between temperature compensation and metabolism.