Gene expression profiles in gastric mucosa of sleep deprivation rats.

Abstract

Stress has been shown to induce gastric mucosal lesions and lower the effectiveness of the mucosa as a barrier[1-6]. In rats, gastric ulcers can be produced by cold-restraint stress[7-9] and it is frequently employed as a model for the study of the mechanisms of stress on ulcer formation. Cold-restraint stress however is not normally encountered in human subjects while sleep deprivation is a common experience among city dwellers, night shift workers and medical professionals. It imposes stress on the body, and produces a variety of health problems[10-14]. Sleep deprivation may affect the epithelium linings of the gastrointestinal tract, because stress been demonstrated to produce gastric mucosal lesions in rats[15,16]. Although various factors has been proposed to account for this process, the precise mechanism of how sleep deprivation to affect the gastric mucosa barrier, especially at the molecular level, still remains unclear. In this project we observed the effect of sleep deprivation on the defensive factors of gastric mucosa, and used cDNA expression arrays to identify genes expressed abnormally in gastric mucosa of sleep deprivation rats.