Publication Date:
2008-01-11
Description:
There are fundamental similarities between sleep in mammals and quiescence in the arthropod Drosophila melanogaster, suggesting that sleep-like states are evolutionarily ancient. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans also has a quiescent behavioural state during a period called lethargus, which occurs before each of the four moults. Like sleep, lethargus maintains a constant temporal relationship with the expression of the C. elegans Period homologue LIN-42 (ref. 5). Here we show that quiescence associated with lethargus has the additional sleep-like properties of reversibility, reduced responsiveness and homeostasis. We identify the cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) gene egl-4 as a regulator of sleep-like behaviour, and show that egl-4 functions in sensory neurons to promote the C. elegans sleep-like state. Conserved effects on sleep-like behaviour of homologous genes in C. elegans and Drosophila suggest a common genetic regulation of sleep-like states in arthropods and nematodes. Our results indicate that C. elegans is a suitable model system for the study of sleep regulation. The association of this C. elegans sleep-like state with developmental changes that occur with larval moults suggests that sleep may have evolved to allow for developmental changes.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Raizen, David M -- Zimmerman, John E -- Maycock, Matthew H -- Ta, Uyen D -- You, Young-jai -- Sundaram, Meera V -- Pack, Allan I -- England -- Nature. 2008 Jan 31;451(7178):569-72. doi: 10.1038/nature06535. Epub 2008 Jan 9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Center for Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. raizen@mail.med.upenn.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18185515" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Arousal/genetics/physiology
;
Biological Evolution
;
Caenorhabditis elegans/enzymology/genetics/*physiology
;
Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins/genetics/metabolism
;
Conserved Sequence/genetics
;
Cyclic GMP-Dependent Protein Kinases/genetics/metabolism
;
Drosophila melanogaster/genetics/physiology
;
Homeostasis/physiology
;
Larva/physiology
;
Lethargy
;
Molting/physiology
;
Sleep/genetics/*physiology
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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