Effects of light interruption on sleep and viability of Drosophila melanogaster

PLoS One. 2014 Aug 22;9(8):e105678. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105678. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Light is a very important regulator of the daily sleep rhythm. Here, we investigate the influence of nocturnal light stimulation on Drosophila sleep. Results showed that total daytime sleep was reduced due to a decrease in daytime sleep episode duration caused by discontinuous light stimulation, but sleep was not strongly impacted at nighttime although the discontinuous light stimulation occurred during the scotophase. During a subsequent recovery period without light interruption, the sleep quality of nighttime sleep was improved and of daytime sleep reduced, indicating flies have a persistent response to nocturnal light stimulation. Further studies showed that the discontinuous light stimulation damped the daily rhythm of a circadian light-sensitive protein cryptochrome both at the mRNA and protein levels, which subsequently caused disappearance of circadian rhythm of the core oscillator timeless and decrease of TIMLESS protein at nighttime. These data indicate that the nocturnal light interruption plays an important role in sleep through core proteins CRYTOCHROME and TIMLESS, Moreover, interruption of sleep further impacted reproduction and viability.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Circadian Rhythm / physiology*
  • Cytochromes / genetics
  • Cytochromes / metabolism
  • Drosophila Proteins / genetics
  • Drosophila Proteins / metabolism
  • Drosophila melanogaster
  • Light*
  • Sleep / physiology*

Substances

  • Cytochromes
  • Drosophila Proteins
  • tim protein, Drosophila

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program from Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (“973” Program Grant number 2012CB114100) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 31272371) to Z. Zhao. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.