Sleep increases chromosome dynamics to enable reduction of accumulating DNA damage in single neurons

May 20, 2019  15:22

Sleep is essential to all animals with a nervous system. Nevertheless, the core cellular function of sleep is unknown, and there is no conserved molecular marker to define sleep across phylogeny. Time-lapse imaging of chromosomal markers in single cells of live zebrafish revealed that sleep increases chromosome dynamics in individual neurons but not in two other cell types.

Manipulation of sleep, chromosome dynamics, neuronal activity, and DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) showed that chromosome dynamics are low and the number of DSBs accumulates during wakefulness. In turn, sleep increases chromosome dynamics, which are necessary to reduce the amount of DSBs. These results establish chromosome dynamics as a potential marker to define single sleeping cells, and propose that the restorative function of sleep is nuclear maintenance.

Sleep is vital to animal life and is found in all studied animals, ranging from jellyfish to worm, fly, zebrafish, rodents, and humans. Prolonged sleep deprivation can be lethal, and sleep disturbances are associated with various deficiencies in brain performance6. Sleep is regulated by circadian and homeostatic processes7, and is coupled with reduced awareness of the environment and a high risk for survival. Several mechanisms can explain the roles of sleep, ranging from macromolecule biosynthesis, energy conservation, and metabolite clearance, to synaptic plasticity and memory consolidation. However, why sleep has evolved and which fundamental ancestral functions it regulates, remain enigmatic.

Full article: Nature Communications

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