A Cryptochrome 2 Mutation Yields Advanced Sleep Phase in Human

  1. Arisa Hirano
  2. Guangsen Shi
  3. Christopher R Jones
  4. Anna Lipzen
  5. Len A Pennacchio
  6. Ying Xu
  7. William C Hallows
  8. Thomas McMahon
  9. Maya Yamazaki
  10. Louis J Ptáček  Is a corresponding author
  11. Ying-Hui Fu  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of California San Francisco, United States
  2. University of California, San Francisco, United States
  3. University of Utah, United States
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States
  5. Soochow University, China

Abstract

Familial Advanced Sleep Phase (FASP) is a heritable human sleep phenotype characterized by very early sleep and wake times. We identified a missense mutation in the human Cryptochrome 2 (CRY2) gene that co-segregates with FASP in one family. The mutation leads to replacement of an alanine residue at position 260 with a threonine (A260T). In mice, the CRY2 mutation causes a shortened circadian period and reduced phase-shift to early-night light pulse associated with phase-advanced behavioral rhythms in the light-dark cycle. The A260T mutation is located in the phosphate loop of the flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) binding domain of CRY2. The mutation alters the conformation of CRY2, increasing its accessibility and affinity for FBXL3 (an E3 ubiquitin ligase), thus promoting its degradation. These results demonstrate that CRY2 stability controlled by FBXL3 plays a key role in the regulation of human sleep wake behavior.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Arisa Hirano

    Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Guangsen Shi

    Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Christopher R Jones

    Department of Neurology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Anna Lipzen

    Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Walnut Creek, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Len A Pennacchio

    DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Walnut Creek, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Ying Xu

    Center for System Biology, Soochow University, Suzhou, China
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6689-7768
  7. William C Hallows

    Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8306-8438
  8. Thomas McMahon

    Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Maya Yamazaki

    Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  10. Louis J Ptáček

    Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    For correspondence
    ljp@ucsf.edu
    Competing interests
    Louis J Ptáček, Reviewing editor, eLife.
  11. Ying-Hui Fu

    Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    For correspondence
    ying-hui.fu@ucsf.edu
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6628-0266

Funding

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (HL059596)

  • Louis J Ptáček

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM079180)

  • Ying-Hui Fu

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

  • Arisa Hirano

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All experimental protocols (Protocol no. AN111686-02) were conducted according to US National Institutes of Health guidelines for animal research andwere approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of California, San Francisco.

Human subjects: All human subjects signed a consent form approved by the Institutional Review Boards at the University of Utah and the University of California, San Francisco (IRB# 10-03952). The consent form includes all confidentiality and ethic guidelines and also indicates not revealing subject information in the publication.

Copyright

© 2016, Hirano et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 4,318
    views
  • 859
    downloads
  • 128
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Arisa Hirano
  2. Guangsen Shi
  3. Christopher R Jones
  4. Anna Lipzen
  5. Len A Pennacchio
  6. Ying Xu
  7. William C Hallows
  8. Thomas McMahon
  9. Maya Yamazaki
  10. Louis J Ptáček
  11. Ying-Hui Fu
(2016)
A Cryptochrome 2 Mutation Yields Advanced Sleep Phase in Human
eLife 5:e16695.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16695

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16695

Further reading

    1. Neuroscience
    Gáspár Oláh, Rajmund Lákovics ... Gábor Tamás
    Research Article

    Human-specific cognitive abilities depend on information processing in the cerebral cortex, where the neurons are significantly larger and their processes longer and sparser compared to rodents. We found that, in synaptically connected layer 2/3 pyramidal cells (L2/3 PCs), the delay in signal propagation from soma to soma is similar in humans and rodents. To compensate for the longer processes of neurons, membrane potential changes in human axons and/or dendrites must propagate faster. Axonal and dendritic recordings show that the propagation speed of action potentials (APs) is similar in human and rat axons, but the forward propagation of excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) and the backward propagation of APs are 26 and 47% faster in human dendrites, respectively. Experimentally-based detailed biophysical models have shown that the key factor responsible for the accelerated EPSP propagation in human cortical dendrites is the large conductance load imposed at the soma by the large basal dendritic tree. Additionally, larger dendritic diameters and differences in cable and ion channel properties in humans contribute to enhanced signal propagation. Our integrative experimental and modeling study provides new insights into the scaling rules that help maintain information processing speed albeit the large and sparse neurons in the human cortex.

    1. Neuroscience
    Jacob A Miller
    Insight

    When navigating environments with changing rules, human brain circuits flexibly adapt how and where we retain information to help us achieve our immediate goals.