| Project/Area Number |
22K05506
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 38050:Food sciences-related
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| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
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Principal Investigator |
シェラス ヨアン 筑波大学, 医学医療系, 助教 (60544319)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2022-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
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| Keywords | sleep / zinc / gut-brain axis |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
We designed a zinc-deficient diet which allows us to manipulate zinc concentration in the blood of mice without affecting the global health of the animal. By using this diet, we will evaluate the effects of a zinc deprivation on sleep and general health in mammals.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
A lack of sleep is associated with long-term health consequences (diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease) and these conditions may lead to a shortened life expectancy. We recently identified Zinc as a powerful modulator of sleep. Zinc-containing food dose dependently increased the total amount of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep in mice and in humans. This is the first evidence ever published that zinc can actually modulate sleep (Cherasse et al., Mol. Nutr. Food Res., 2015). In addition, we also found that Japanese people with low serum zinc concentration sleeps poorly. In a randomized controlled trial, we produced evidence that chronically absorbing a proper amount of zinc has beneficial effects on Japanese citizen’s sleep (Saito, Cherasse et al., Mol. Nutr. Food. Res., 2017). In our current research we focused on optimizing the sleep promoting effect of zinc and identified efficient co-factors. Therefore, a similar sleep effect can be achieved with half the dose of zinc without this co-factor.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
As originally planned, we optimized the conditions for optimizing the sleep promoting effect of zinc with a careful selection of zinc source as well as a supplementation in sugar alcohol.
With our actual knowledge, we cannot rule that the brain can “sense” serum zinc directly and that the molecular mechanisms leading the increase of sleep are entirely located in the central nervous system. Only one specific receptor for zinc has been characterized so far: GPR39. By knocking out this receptor, we tested the possibility that GPR39 was involved in the detection of zinc and the promotion of sleep. However our experiments confirmed that in presence or absence of this receptor, mice remained sensitive to an oral administration of zinc and the amount of sleep remained undistinguishable from control mice. Therefore we concluded that GPR39 is not involved in the sleep promoting effect of zinc.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
We aim at providing a better life quality to the general population by formulating a new zinc-based sleep-promoting solution which is both cheap and safe. During the coming year, we will continue optimizing the efficiency of our zinc solution with new sugar alcohol and various doses.
In addition, we will also continue to study the molecular mechanisms involved in the zinc-induced sleep, and particularly identify the role of the Gut Brain axis.
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