Abstract
Sleep is essential for the survival of most living beings. Numerous researchers have identified a series of genes that are thought to regulate “sleep-state” or the “deprived state”. As sleep has a significant effect on physiology, we believe that lack of total sleep, or particularly rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, for a prolonged period would have a profound impact on various body tissues. Therefore, using the microarray method, we sought to determine which genes and processes are affected in the brain and liver of rats following nine days of REM sleep deprivation. Our findings showed that REM sleep deprivation affected a total of 652 genes in the brain and 426 genes in the liver. Only 23 genes were affected commonly, 10 oppositely, and 13 similarly across brain and liver tissue. Our results suggest that nine-day REM sleep deprivation differentially affects genes and processes in the brain and liver of rats.
Highlights
Sleep is a universal phenomenon but still we lack fundamental knowledge of its overall functions and purpose
A recent study on sleep restriction showed that there is an increase in free fatty acids in healthy men, which led us to speculate that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep deprivation can affect genes such as Major urinary protein 5 (Mup5), which our findings demonstrated as having an association with the term fatty acid biosynthetic processes and was differentially expressed as a result of REM sleep deprivation [58]
REM sleep deprivation is found to be associated with modification of expression of long-term potentiation in the visual cortex of immature rats [119], and we report up-regulation of structural constituents of ribosomes, translation regulation activity, while dopamine receptor-signaling pathway, dopaminergic, cholinergic, GABAergic regulation of synaptic transmission, serotonin binding, and receptor activity were down-regulated in the brain (Figures 3B and 4B)
Summary
Sleep is a universal phenomenon but still we lack fundamental knowledge of its overall functions and purpose. Despite the lack of general knowledge regarding the functions of sleep, loss of sleep has been shown to drastically alter the physiology of many of the animals studied far [17,18,19]. While a single characterization cannot be ascribed to sleep, numerous studies link its loss to detrimental effects on metabolism, behavior, immunity, cellular functions, and hormonal regulations across species [27,28,29,30]. There are some mechanisms that are associated with behavioral plasticity that are dependent on sociality or physiological state regarding sleep regulation [12,31]. In Drosophila, not all stages of sleep are necessary for basic survival, but questions relating to the critical functions of sleep, plasticity, and its overall importance are still being explored [31]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call