# Regulation of sleep by microRNAs

> **NIH NIH P01** · HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL · 2020 · $246,829

## Abstract

Project 2 Project Leader: Griffith, Leslie C.
Project Summary / Abstract
The public health and economic impact of circadian and sleep misalignment had grown enormously with the
increasingly global and 24-hour nature of our society, and costs are in the billions. In spite of this, however, we
know very little about the mechanisms by which sleep is regulated. This project will provide the first
comprehensive look at the function of microRNAs (miRs) in sleep. The dominant model of how the amount of
sleep is determined is that the major regulators of sleep are the circadian clock and homeostatic sleep drive. It
has become clear in the last few years, however, that other physiological variables can also exert modulatory
influences. We have recently completed a screen of a library of miR-sponges and identified specific miRs
which appear to be essential for each of these levels of control and we propose to understand the roles of
these miRs at the molecular and cellular levels.
This project is also part of a more integrated assault on the conserved roles of miRs in plasticity. Sleep and
synaptic plasticity have been posited to be intimately related for two reasons. The first is that sleep itself is a
daily exercise in rewiring: sensory inputs and motor outputs are suppressed. The second is that one of the
most compelling theories of why we sleep is that we need a daily “resetting” of our circuitry to keep synaptic
weights and circuit activity with a linear range to prevent saturation of our information storage capacity. Our
work on sleep-regulating miRs will be analyzed in the context of experiments done by the Van Vactor lab on
NMJ synaptic plasticity and by the Davis lab on associative learning to give us a glimpse into the more
fundamental roles of miRs in regulation of synaptic function.
Specific Aims:
1: Determine the complete set of microRNAs which control sleep.
2. Determine how miR190 regulates sleep plasticity.
3. Determine the role of miR92a/b in the regulation of sleep by the clock.
4. Determine the role of let-7 in the hormonal regulation of sleep.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9910461
- **Project number:** 5P01NS090994-05
- **Recipient organization:** HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
- **Principal Investigator:** Leslie C Griffith
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $246,829
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9910461

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9910461, Regulation of sleep by microRNAs (5P01NS090994-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-14 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9910461. Licensed CC0.

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