Sleepless in Drosophila

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania reported in Science the identification of a gene whose influence on potassium channel activity could have implications for treating insomnia and other sleep disorders. Although sleep is an essential process conserved from flies to humans,¹ finding a human homolog of the gene may prove to be difficult. However, regulation of sleep remains a poorly understood phenomenon, and knowing the homolog would aid in the design of better insomnia drugs.

The gene, which the researchers called sleepless (sss), was identified using a genetic screen of Drosophila melanogaster mutants that experienced less daily sleep than is normal. The sleepless gene encodes a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein that was enriched in the brains of mutant flies. Lack of sleepless protein in D. melanogaster led to a greater than 80% reduction in amount of sleep compared with that for wild-type flies.²...