Genetic and Neural Mechanisms Regulating the Interaction
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
GENETIC AND NEURAL MECHANISMS REGULATING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SLEEP AND METABOLISM IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER by Maria E. Yurgel A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Charles E. Schmidt College of Science In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL December 2018 Copyright 2018 by Maria Eduarda Yurgel ii GENETIC AND NEURAL MECHANISMS REGULATING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SLEEP AND METABOLISM IN DROSOPHILAMELANOGASTER by Maria E. Yurgel This dissertation was prepared under the direction of the candidate's dissertation advisor, Dr. Alex C. Keene, Department of Biological Sciences, and has been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and was accepted in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: Z!--�•r<. �� --- Alex C. Keene, Ph.D. Disserta · n Advis ,,. Tanja Godenschwege, Ph.p Khaled Sobhan, Ph.D. Date� 7 Interim Dean, Graduate College 111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude for all my committee members for their guidance and support. First and foremost, I would like to thank my mentor, Dr. Alex Keene, for believing in my potential and giving me the opportunity to pursue my PhD in his laboratory. During these 5 years, I have been challenged to my limit and pushed to think, to be creative, and be productive. His passion and excitement for science fueled me to get out of my comfort zone, implement new techniques, and pursue questions that were not trivial. I am also greatly indebted to Dr. Tanja Godenschwege, for helping me both scientifically and personally through the highs and lows of my graduate education. Her extensive knowledge and thirst for new challenges made me appreciate research. I will be forever thankful for her always welcoming my questions, providing thoughtful advice, and above all, instilling a newfound confidence in myself. I also would like to thank Dr. Greg Macleod for always providing experimental guidance and making me think outside the box. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Rod Murphey for creating an ideal environment for scientific pursuits and being extremely supportive of all graduate students. Finally, I have been lucky to have an informal advisor, Erik Duboue, who has always welcomed my questions and provided thoughtful experimental and career advice. Moving from the University of Nevada, Reno to Florida Atlantic University was not an easy transition. I am eternally appreciative of my labmates and good friends, Kazuma Murakami, James Jaggard, Melissa Slocumb, and Beatriz Robinson who made this journey enjoyable. Without their help and support I would not have succeeded. iv The work presented in this dissertation would not have been possible without the environment in the Keene lab. I wanted to thank all lab members for their patience, willingness to help, and support through the many ups and downs of graduate life. In particular, I wanted to express my deepest gratitude to John Tauber. His wit for research, incredible talent, perseverance, and critical eye has challenged me to do better and be better. I am also thankful to Kreesha Shah, without her help my last year in lab would not have gone smoothly. Lastly, I am thankful to the post docs in the Keene Lab including Pavel Masek, Masato Yoshizawa, Bethany Stahl, and Elizabeth Brown. In particular, Elizabeth for being an incredible labmate, always willing to help and brainstorm with me. There are innumerable graduate students and staff members of MC-19 that have been critical during my PhD. I would like to thank the members of the Macleod, Godenschwege, Duboue, Stackman, and Murphey Labs. In particular, I want to thank Jana Boerner for her collaborative work and patience to teach me microscopy. Finally, I would like to thank Silvana Jaramillo and Dr. Stacee Caplan for going above and beyond to help me with administrative issues throughout my PhD. Above all, I would like to thank my family for their love and support. Their emphasis in education, culture, and knowledge is truly unprecedented, you are my inspiration. My mother and father have taught me from a young age to be persistent and move through life with an ambitious mind. I will be forever thankful for their support in every single decision in my life. My grandfather, Henrique, grandmothers, Maria Helena and Adelia, and aunt, Maria Laura, for their unconditional love. Your love has grounded me and given me strength and inspiration to reach my life goals. My sister, Martina, her clever sense of humor, understanding and protective nature, has made life easier and v more enjoyable. I am eternally grateful for her support. I would like to thank all my cousins for always giving me advice and supporting who I am, especially, Caio and Marcela. Both of you have set a bar unreachably high both academically and personally and I am constantly looking up to both of you. Finally, I would like to thank my partner, Paloma Amaral. Her love and support have given me the strength to carry on. I am honored to have you by my side. I am also very grateful for all the help she has given me in the lab, both experimentally and in editing my thesis. Throughout my life I have been very lucky to have met incredible friends who have gone lengths to help me. I would like to thank my college friend, Kathryn Zingaro, for her loyalty and support throughout this endeavor. I am also greatly indebted to Veronica Arinze, who showed me the fun side of life. Also, Ed and Gail Greenberg for taking the time to read my thesis and being supportive in every aspect of my personal and professional life. I would like to thank my mentor, Daniela Vilas Boas, for her invaluable guidance. Lastly, I thank my tennis coach, Mauro Brandao, for teaching me to be perseverant. vi ABSTRACT Author: Maria Eduarda Yurgel Title: GENETIC AND NEURAL MECHANISMS REGULATING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SLEEP AND METABOLISM IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER Institution: Florida Atlantic University Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Alex C. Keene Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Year: 2018 Dysregulation of sleep and metabolism has enormous health consequences. Sleep loss is linked to increased appetite and insulin insensitivity, and epidemiological studies link chronic sleep deprivation to obesity-related disorders. Interactions between sleep and metabolism involve the integration of signalling from brain regions regulating sleep, feeding, and metabolism, as well as communication between the brain and peripheral organs. In this series of studies, using the fruit fly as a model organism, we investigated how feeding information is processed to regulate sleep, and how peripheral tissues regulate sleep through the modulation of energy stores. In order to address these questions, we performed a large RNAi screen to identify novel genetic regulators of sleep and metabolism. We found that, the mRNA/DNA binding protein, Translin (trsn), is necessary for the acute modulation of sleep in accordance with feeding state. Flies mutant for trsn or selective knockdown of trsn in Leucokinin (Lk) neurons abolishes starvation-induced sleep suppression. In addition, vii genetic silencing of Lk neurons or a mutation in the Lk locus also disrupts the integration between sleep and metabolism, suggesting that Lk neurons are active during starvation. We confirmed this hypothesis by measuring baseline activity during fed and starved states. We found that LHLK neurons, which have axonal projections to sleep and metabolic centers of the brain, are more active during starvation. These findings suggest that LHLK neurons are modulated in accordance with feeding state to regulate sleep. Finally, to address how peripheral tissues regulate sleep, we performed an RNAi screen, selectively knocking down genes in the fat body. We found that knockdown of Phosphoribosylformylglycinamidine synthase (Ade2), a highly conserved gene involved the biosynthesis of purines, regulates sleep and energy stores. Flies heterozygous for two Ade2 mutations are short sleepers and this effect is partially rescued by restoring Ade2 to the fly fat body. These findings suggest Ade2 functions within the fat body to promote both sleep and energy storage, providing a functional link between these processes. Together, the experimental evidence presented here provides an initial model for how the peripheral tissues communicate to the brain to modulate sleep in accordance with metabolic state. viii GENETIC AND NEURAL MECHANISMS REGULATING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SLEEP AND METABOLISM IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Why do we sleep? ........................................................................................................... 2 How sleep is regulated in mammals? .............................................................................. 3 Food intake and energy expenditure in mammals ........................................................... 7 Mechanisms for sleep-metabolism interactions in mammals ........................................