Disruption of Circadian Transcriptome in Lung by Acute Sleep Deprivation

Inadequate sleep prevails in modern society and it impairs the circadian transcriptome. However, whether acute sleep deprivation has impact on the circadian rhythms is not clear. Here, we show that in mouse lung, a 10-hour acute sleep deprivation can alter the circadian expression of approximally 3,000 genes. We found that circadian rhythm disappears in genes related to metabolism and signaling pathways regulating protein phosphorylation after acute sleep deprivation, while the core circadian regulators do not change much in rhythmicity. Importantly, the strong positive correlation between mean expression and amplitude (E-A correlation) of cycling genes has been validated in both control and sleep deprivation conditions, supporting the energetic cost optimization model of circadian gene expression. Thus, we reveal that acute sleep deprivation leads to a profound change in the circadian gene transcription that influences the biological functions in lung. Overall design: The animals in the control group were housed under 12 h: 12h light/dark cycle, while the animals in the acute sleep deprivation group (SD) were kept awake for 10 hours from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. according to a sleep deprivation paradigm. After 10-hour sleep deprivation, we harvested the lung tissue at 6 time points with 4-hour intervals during the following 24 hours. Transcriptome analyses were performed by total RNA-sequencing (whole-transcriptome sequencing).