Circadian Clock Without DNA

This article talks about two recent articles that were released recently. It goes into depth about both of the articles that have been causing quite the controversy. In both papers, both of the researchers' laboratory models were eukaryotic cells and neither had any DNA transcription or RNA translation going on inside the cell.
The results of both papers demonstrated that transcription of DNA and translation of RNA is not needed for the generation of circadian rhythms in two different types of eukaryotic cells belonging to evolutionarily very distant relatives – protists and mammals.

In the case of red blood cells, the result is lucid – there is no DNA or RNA in these cells. Thus, leaving the circadian rhythms in these cells, to be generated in the cytoplasm.

In the case of O.tauri, the picture result was a little bit more complex: the cells had a nucleus which had DNA. There was a clock driven by transcription and translation of recognized "clock genes." However, when this mechanism was supressed, by constant darkness or by chemicals, the cells still exhibited circadian rhythms generated by the molecules residing in the cytoplasm (and some of those molecules may have been strands of RNA transcribed earlier).

This is exactly what they discovered in both cases – there was a clear circadian rhythm of peroxiredoxins state-switching both in cultured red blood cells and in the cultured Ostreococcus tauri .

In sum, the phase at which the DNA-centered clock starts its cycle is determined by the phase of the cytoplasmic clock, not the other way round, i.e., the cytoplasmic clock is dominant over the nuclear clock.