THE EFFECT OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON PRION PROTEIN IN ALBINO RATS

• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, Enugu, Nigeria. 2016-11-01
• Series: Journal of Experimental Research
• Online Access: http://www.er-journal.com/papers/UGWUENE_JUNE_2015_3_1.pdf

Thirty five Wister albino rats were used in this research work. Twenty four of the albino rats were successfully sleep deprived and used as test group while eleven were not sleep deprived and used as control group. These rats were respectively sleep deprived for fourteen days using single platform sleep deprivation technique. The rats, both the sleep deprived and non sleep deprived were sacrificed by euthanization technique after the sleep deprivation period. Brain tissue of every rat was extracted by surgical dissection. Part of the brain tissues were homogenized and assayed for prion protein while a part of each brain tissue was histologically treated for the brain tissue morphological studies. The results presented evidence of the presence of prion protein (PrP) in the albino rats when compared with the commercial PrP positive control used. The results also showed a significant increase (P and lt;0.05) in the PrP concentration after sleep deprivation when compared with the non sleep deprived control group but when compared with the commercial positive PrP control group, there was a significant decrease (P and lt;0.05). The brain tissue micrograph showed neither abnormal cell morphology nor evidence of amyloid protein plaques. These results suggest that although there was a significant increase in prion protein concentration due to 14 days sleep deprivation, there was no abnormal protein conformation or protein misfolding due to sleep deprivation stress.