据7月18日的《科学》（Science）杂志报道说，他们已经在蝇类中发现了一个叫做“无眠”（sleepless）的基因，该基因是正常睡眠过程所必需的。Sleepless 是直接与睡眠调节有关的第2 个基因。这些发现增广了我们对睡眠调节过程（对所有动物都是至关重要的）的知识，并可能最终帮助人类改善睡眠的质量。
Kyunghee Koh 及其同事发现，缺乏sleepless 基因编码蛋白的突变蝇类出现了每日睡眠时间的极端缩减（可高达85% ），而有些则根本没有睡眠。无眠蛋白水平适度减少的蝇类所受到的影响没有以上的那样严重，但是在被剥夺睡眠之后其恢复性睡眠期变得较短。研究人员提示，无眠蛋白在脑中被释放出来后通过降低神经细胞膜的兴奋性而引发睡眠的欲望。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Science，Vol. 321. no. 5887, pp. 372 - 376，Kyunghee Koh，Amita Sehgal
Identification of SLEEPLESS, a Sleep-Promoting Factor
Kyunghee Koh,1* William J. Joiner,1* Mark N. Wu,2* Zhifeng Yue,1 Corinne J. Smith,1 Amita Sehgal1
Sleep is an essential process conserved from flies to humans. The importance of sleep is underscored by its tight homeostatic control. Through a forward genetic screen, we identified a gene, sleepless, required for sleep in Drosophila. The sleepless gene encodes a brain-enriched, glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein. Loss of SLEEPLESS protein caused an extreme (>80%) reduction in sleep; a moderate reduction in SLEEPLESS had minimal effects on baseline sleep but markedly reduced the amount of recovery sleep after sleep deprivation. Genetic and molecular analyses revealed that quiver, a mutation that impairs Shaker-dependent potassium current, is an allele of sleepless. Consistent with this finding, Shaker protein levels were reduced in sleepless mutants. We propose that SLEEPLESS is a signaling molecule that connects sleep drive to lowered membrane excitability.
1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
2 Division of Sleep Medicine, Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
