Sleep deprivation (SD) poses health and safety risks to the general public, and can be a particular danger to workers in safety-critical roles. However, the ability to identify operationally dangerous levels of sleep loss is hindered by the lack of a conclusive test.This study employs microarray analyses toward developing gene expression biomarkers diagnostic of not only SD, but more importantly, the phenotype of neurobehavioral impairment from sleep loss. Healthy adult volunteers were recruited to a sleep laboratory for seven consecutive days, six nights.After two Baseline days of 10 h time in bed (TIB), 11 subjects underwent an Experimental phase of 62 h of continued wakefulness, followed by two Recovery nights of 10 h TIB. Another six subjects underwent a well-rested Control condition of 10 h TIB for all six nights. Blood draws were taken for measuring gene expression on days two, four, and six at 4 h intervals from 08:00 to 20:00 h, corresponding to 12 timepoints across one Baseline, one Experimental, and one Recovery day.Altogether 212 genes changed expression in response to the SD Treatment, i.e., the difference between SD and Control subjects. Most genes were down-regulated during SD. Also, 28 genes were associated with neurobehavioral deficits as measured by the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT). The changes found in many of both the Treatment and PVT genes support previous findings associating SD with the immune response and ion signaling. Additionally, novel biomarkers are reported such as the Speedy/RINGO family of cell cycle regulators.This study serves as an important first step toward gene expression biomarker discovery for neurobehavioral impairment from sleep deprivation.
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