Cortical miR-709 links glutamatergic signaling to NREM sleep EEG slow waves in an activity-dependent manner [agilent_forebrain]

Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are key, post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that have been implicated in a plethora of biological processes. Their role in sleep, however, has received little attention. We first investigated the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain miRNA transcriptome. Sleep deprivation affected 52 miRNAs in the whole brain, and particularly miR-709, an activity-dependent microRNA, enriched in the cerebral cortex. Sixteen C57BL/6J male mice (12 weeks old) were used, divided in the sleep-drepived group (n=8) and the non-treated control group (n=8). After removal of an outlier miRNA sample, data from 7 sleep-deprived and 8 control mice were retained in the data set for statistical analysis.