Study identifies decreased protein pleiotrophin (PTN) as a cause of sleep-deprived nerve cell death, offering a new perspective on how sleep deprivation affects cognitive function and disease risk it was done.
Studies have shown that lack of sleep doesn’t just make you feel worse, it also has a negative effect on your brain. Additionally, long-term sleep deprivation can even increase your risk of: Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological diseases. Researchers want to understand how sleep deprivation causes this harm.
In a new study from ACS Proteome Research JournalUsing mice, researchers have identified a protective protein whose levels drop during sleep deprivation, leading to nerve cell death.
Proteomics and cognitive function research
Research has shown that sleep deprivation causes neurological damage to the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory. To better understand the changes responsible for this effect, scientists began investigating changes in proteins and their abundance. RNAwhich contains genetically encoded instructions derived from . DNA.
Thus, previous research has identified several factors linking sleep deprivation and injury. However, researchers have generally not confirmed that they play a role in cognitive function within the larger animal population. So Fuyi Xu, Jia Mi, and their colleagues set out to further investigate how sleep deprivation damages the brain and corroborate their findings.
The role of pleiotrophin
First, the researchers assessed how well the mice, which had been sleep-deprived for two days, navigated a simple maze and recognized new objects. Next, they extracted proteins from the animal’s hippocampus and identified proteins whose abundance had changed. Next, to further narrow the possibilities, they looked at data linking these proteins to maze performance in related strains of mice that do not experience sleep deprivation.
Using this approach, the researchers discovered pleiotrophin (PTN), which was reduced in sleep-deprived mice. Through RNA analysis, the research team identified the molecular pathway by which loss of PTN causes cells in the hippocampus to die. When they looked at human genetic studies, they found that PTN is involved in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. According to the researchers, the study reveals a new mechanism by which sleep protects brain function, and also notes that PTN levels may serve as an indicator of cognitive impairment caused by insomnia.
Reference: “The combination of quantitative proteomics and systems genetics reveals that PTN is associated with sleep deprivation-induced cognitive impairment” Yutong Zhou, Hui Li, Xiaoya Liu, Xiaodong Chi, Zhaoxi Gu, Binsen Cui, Jonas Bergquist, Binsheng Wang, Geng Tian, Chunhua Yang, Fuyi Xu, Jia Mi, August 23, 2023. Proteome Research Journal.
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.3c00269
The authors are supported by funding from Taishan Scholars Construction Engineering, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Central Government Special Project for Local Science and Technology Development of Shandong Province, Key Basic Research Projects of Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, and Shandong Provincial Higher Education Youth Innovation Science. We accept the offer. and technical program, Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation and Binzhou Medical University Research Start-up Fund.