Sleep deprivation and gene expression

Sleep occurs in a wide range of animal species as a vital process for the maintenance of homeostasis, metabolic restoration, physiological regulation, and adaptive cognitive functions in the central nervous system. Long-term perturbations induced by the lack of sleep are mostly mediated by changes at the level of transcription and translation. This chapter reviews studies in humans, rodents, and flies to address the various ways by which sleep deprivation affects gene expression in the nervous system, with a focus on genes related to neuronal plasticity, brain function, and cognition. However, the effects of sleep deprivation on gene expression and the functional consequences of sleep loss are clearly not restricted to the cognitive domain but may include increased inflammation, expression of stress-related genes, general impairment of protein translation, metabolic imbalance, and thermal deregulation.

Overexpression of circadian clock protein cryptochrome (CRY) 1 alleviates sleep deprivation-induced vascular inflammation in a mouse model

Disturbance of the circadian clock by sleep deprivation has been proposed to be involved in the regulation of inflammation. However, the underlying mechanism of circadian oscillator components in regulating the pro-inflammatory process during sleep deprivation remains poorly understood. Using a sleep deprivation mouse model, we showed here that sleep deprivation increased the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines expression and decreased the expression of cryptochrome 1 (CRY1) in vascular endothelial cells. Furthermore, the adhesion molecules including intercellular adhesion molecule-1, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 and E-selectin were elevated in vascular endothelial cells and the monocytes binding to vascular endothelial cells were also increased by sleep deprivation. Interestingly, overexpression of CRY1 in a mouse model by adenovirus vector significantly inhibited the expression of inflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules, and NF-κB signal pathway activation, as well as the binding of monocytes to vascular endothelial cells. Using a luciferase reporter assay, we found that CRY1 could repress the transcriptional activity of nuclear factor (NF)-κB in vitro. Subsequently, we demonstrated that overexpression of CRY1 inhibited the basal concentration of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), leading to decreased protein kinase A activity, which resulted in decreased phosphorylation of p65. Taken together, these results suggested that the overexpression of CRY1 inhibited sleep deprivation-induced vascular inflammation that might be associated with NF-κB and cAMP/PKA pathways.