Circadian and sleep-deprivation variations of monophosphorylated MAP-Kinase in hypothalamus and pons of rats

Abstract

Behavior and physiological changes are under the influence of circadian and homeostatic variations. Temporal alignment regulates timing of neurobiological phenomena, such as protein phosphorylation. In the current report, we describe the circadian and sleep homeostatic phosphorylated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP-K) variations in hypothalamus and pons of rats across 24 h as well as after sleep deprivation. In the circadian study, MAP-K expression showed a building-up profile during the dark phase in hypothalamus, whereas an increase across the lights-on period was found in pons. On the other hand, that phosphorylation of MAP-K in hypothalamus and pons displayed a significant reduction after sleep rebound period. Data demonstrate that MAP-K phosphorylation undergoes circadian and sleep homeostatic variations in brain areas linked to sleep modulation.

Keywords:

• mitogen-activated protein kinase
• hypothalamus
• pons
• Western blot
• sleep deprivation

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Escuela de Medicina, Universidad Anáhuac Mayab [PresInvEMR2014]. Funding given to E.M.-R.