Role of Sleep Restriction in Daily Rhythms of Expression of Hypothalamic Core Clock Genes in Mice.

Weitian Li,Jing Cao,Zixu Wang,Yulan Dong,Yaoxing Chen

doi:10.3390/cimb44020042

Abstract

Lack of sleep time is a menace to modern people, and it leads to chronic diseases and mental illnesses. Circadian processes control sleep, but little is known about how sleep affects the circadian system. Therefore, we performed a 28-day sleep restriction (SR) treatment in mice. Sleep restriction disrupted the clock genes’ circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythms of the Cry1 and Per1/2/3 genes disappeared. The acrophase of the clock genes (Bmal1, Clock, Rev-erbα, and Rorβ) that still had a circadian rhythm was advanced, while the acrophase of negative clock gene Cry2 was delayed. Clock genes’ upstream signals ERK and EIFs also had circadian rhythm disorders. Accompanied by changes in the central oscillator, the plasma output signal (melatonin, corticosterone, IL-6, and TNF-α) had an advanced acrophase. While the melatonin mesor was decreased, the corticosterone, IL-6, and TNF-α mesor was increased. Our results indicated that chronic sleep loss could disrupt the circadian rhythm of the central clock through ERK and EIFs and affect the output signal downstream of the core biological clock.

Highlights

Restriction in Daily Rhythms ofMost people cannot reach the recommended sleep time [1,2]
Our findings suggest that chronic sleep deprivation impairs the circadian rhythm of the hypothalamus, which in turn leads to disturbances in the rhythm of circadian clock output signals, causing damage to the body
Cosine analysis showed that all nine clock gene expression patterns showed significant circadian rhythms (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Restriction in Daily Rhythms ofMost people cannot reach the recommended sleep time [1,2]. Lack of sleep causes extensive harm to human health, including metabolic function, emotional regulation, and adverse effects on cognitive function [3,4,5,6]. Sleep regulation includes sleep pressure (process S) and the circadian rhythm (process C). The circadian rhythm controls the transition between sleep and wakefulness [7]. It is unclear how increased sleep pressure caused by reduced sleep time affects the circadian rhythm. Research on this issue can help us to understand how a lack of sleep damages the body and to find ways to alleviate and improve it

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Discussion

Conclusion