Effects of aging on gene expression in multiple tissues in surface and cave Astyanax mexicanus

Dysregulation of sleep has widespread health consequences and represents an enormous health burden. Short-sleeping individuals are predisposed to the effects of neurodegeneration, suggesting a critical role for sleep in the maintenance of neuronal health. While the effects of sleep on cellular function are not completely understood, growing evidence has identified an association between sleep loss and DNA damage, raising the possibility that sleep facilitates efficient DNA repair. The Mexican tetra fish, Astyanax mexicanus provides a model to investigate the evolutionary basis for changes in sleep and the consequences of sleep loss. Multiple cave-adapted populations of these fish have evolved to sleep for substantially less time compared to surface populations of the same species without identifiable impacts on healthspan or longevity. To investigate whether the evolved sleep loss is associated with DNA damage and aging, we compared the transcriptional response to aging between surface and cave morphs of A. mexicanus Overall design: To investigate differences in the transcriptional response to aging, we dissected the whole brain, liver, heart, gut, and a portion of muscle, from young (~1 year) and aged (7-8 year) surface and cave fish, extracted the RNA from each sample, and performed gene expression analysis.