The Influence of Sleep Deprivation on Hippocampal CA1 Gene Expression: Relation to Stress and Aging

Sleep deprivation (SD) in young adults is associated with metabolic, stress and cognitive responses that are also characteristic of brain aging. Given that sleep architecture changes with age, including increased fragmentation and decreased slow wave activity, it seems reasonable to investigate potential molecular relationships between SD and aging in brain tissue. Here, we tested the hypothesis that young rats exposed to 24 or 72 hour SD would respond with stress and aging-like shifts in brain hippocampal CA1 gene expression. SD animals showed blood corticosterone and weight changes consistent with a stress response. Microarray results, validated by Western blot and comparison to prior SD studies, pointed to disruptions in neurotransmission, sleep pressure signaling, and macromolecular synthesis. In a separate experiment, animals exposed to 24 or 72 hour novel environment stress recapitulated nearly one third of the SD transcriptional profile, particularly upregulated apoptotic and immune signaling pathways. Compared to aging (based on three previously published independent hippocampal aging studies), SD transcriptional profiles agreed for neurogenesis and energy pathways. However, immune signaling, glial activity, macromolecular synthesis and neuronal function all showed an SD profile that was, at least in part, opposed by aging. We conclude that while stress and SD have discrete molecular signatures, they do show a subset of highly similar changes. However, the same could not be said of aging and SD, where a similar subset of genes is changed, but in partially divergent directions. Finally, this work identifies presynaptic vesicular release and intercellular adhesion molecular signatures as novel targets for future SD-countering therapeutics.

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Porter NM, Bohannon JH, Curran-Rauhut M, Buechel HM, Dowling AL, Brewer LD, Popovic J, Thibault V, Kraner SD, Chen KC, Blalock EM