Identification of polymorphic variants impacting sleep in Drosophila

National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute

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Abstract

Aim 1. Sleep is thought to be regulated by two processes: a homeostatic process, and a circadian process. Under this aim we attempt to relate gene expression to sleep need in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. RNA was extracted from single long- and short-sleeping flies of the Sleep Inbred Panel in 3-hour intervals over a 48-hour time period. The samples reflect a normal 12:12-hr light:dark cycle, and include male and female samples. In addition, some of the flies were sleep deprived during the night. We prepared 384 samples total. We will identify genes that are cycling under normal conditions and in response to sleep deprivation in the long and short sleepers, with the goal of contrasting the two. Aim 2. According to the two-process model, the timing of sleep is governed by the circadian clock. We have assessed circadian timing phenotypes in the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel and performed genome-wide association to identify genes influencing sleep timing. Verification studies are ongoing. Aim 3. Recent work by another research group suggested that sleep states could be discerned from fly sleep and activity count data using a Hidden Markov Model. We have applied this model to fly sleep and activity data from the DGRP and from the Sleep Inbred Panel. We use the HMM to estimate the time spent in each sleep state.