You may have wondered why some people seem to need
less sleep. Is it in their genes? It turns out that
it likely is. A number of so called short-sleeper
genes, which are associated with little need for
sleep, have recently been identified through years
of arduous research and serendipity.
Now, researchers at the RIKEN Quantitative Biology
Center (QBiC) have advanced sleep genetics research
by developing a new method for monitoring mouse
sleep cycles. The Snappy Sleep Stager is a
non-invasive, automated sleep cycle monitoring
system based on mouse respiration, or breathing.
Compared with other monitoring systems that require
surgical implants or many hours of human
intervention the Snappy Sleep Stager is simple to
operate and allows more mice to be studied during
one experiment. By combining it with a new system
for developing nearly perfect knock-out mice, they
have identified a new short-sleeper gene, Nr3a.
Sumiyama says he was not surprised at the improved
efficiency and that the research went quite smoothly
but he admits the greater challenge is high
efficiency “knock in” animals, saying, “Insertion of
a gene is much more difficult than removing it.”
According to Kenta Sumiyama, a co-first author of
the research, from RIKEN QBiC., “You can target any
disease caused by a genetic mutation” with the
triple CRISPR method. In the current research the
scientists found that the Nr3a gene, a member of the
NMDA receptor family, is a short-sleeper gene. “The
implications are wide ranging,” says Genshiro A.
Sunagawa of the RIKEN Center for Developmental
Biology, a first author of the paper. “As the NMDA
receptor is associated with schizophrenia,
Alzheimer’s disease and depression, all of which are
known to involve sleep disturbances.”
In addition to these disorders, sleep cycle
disturbances are known to be associated with many
health issues.”
For more information
Genshiro A. Sunagawa, Kenta Sumiyama, Maki
Ukai-Tadenuma, Dimitri Perrin, Hiroshi Fujishima,
Hideki Ukai, Osamu Nishimura, Shoi Shi, Rei-ichiro
Ohno, Ryohei Narumi, Yoshihiro Shimizu, Daisuke
Tone, Koji L. Ode, Shigehiro Kuraku and Hiroki R.
Ueda,
"Mammalian reverse genetics without crossing reveals
Nr3a as a short-sleeper gene"
Cell Reports, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2015.12.052”I
Link...
MDN |