Genetic and neuronal regulation of sleep by neuropeptide VF
- California Institute of Technology, United States
- University of Southern California, United States
Abstract
Sleep is an essential and phylogenetically conserved behavioral state, but it remains unclear to what extent genes identified in invertebrates also regulate vertebrate sleep. RFamide-related neuropeptides have been shown to promote invertebrate sleep, and here we report that the vertebrate hypothalamic RFamide neuropeptide VF (NPVF) regulates sleep in the zebrafish, a diurnal vertebrate. We found that NPVF signaling and npvf-expressing neurons are both necessary and sufficient to promote sleep, that mature peptides derived from the NPVF preproprotein promote sleep in a synergistic manner, and that stimulation of npvf-expressing neurons induces neuronal activity levels consistent with normal sleep. These results identify NPVF signaling and npvf-expressing neurons as a novel vertebrate sleep-promoting system and suggest that RFamide neuropeptides participate in an ancient and central aspect of sleep control.
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Funding
National Institutes of Health (F32NS084769)
- Daniel A Lee
National Institutes of Health (NS070911)
- David A Prober
National Institutes of Health (DA031367)
- David A Prober
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (25392)
- Daniel A Lee
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Scott E Fraser
Edward Mallinckrodt, JR Foundation
- David A Prober
Rita Allen Foundation
- David A Prober
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
- David A Prober
National Institutes of Health (K99NS097683)
- Daniel A Lee
National Institutes of Health (F32NS082010)
- Grigorios Oikonomou
National Institutes of Health (MH107238)
- Scott E Fraser
National Institutes of Health (NS060996)
- David A Prober
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All experiments were performed using standard protocols (Westerfield, 1993) in accordance with the California Institute of Technology and University of Southern California Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee guidelines.
Copyright
© 2017, Lee 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.
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Genetic and neuronal regulation of sleep by neuropeptide VF
eLife 6:e25727.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.25727
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