A wheel of time: the circadian clock, nuclear receptors, and physiology.

It is a long-standing view that the circadian clock functions to proactively align internal physiology with the 24-h rotation of the earth. Recent studies, including one by Schmutz and colleagues (pp. 345-357) in the February 15, 2010, issue of Genes & Development, delineate strikingly complex connections between molecular clocks and nuclear receptor signaling pathways, implying the existence of a large-scale circadian regulatory network coordinating a diverse array of physiological processes to maintain dynamic homeostasis.