The Glutamate-gated Chloride Channel Facilitates Sleep by Enhancing the Excitability of Two Pairs of Neurons in the Ventral Nerve Cord of Drosophila
Yaqian Fan1 · Yao Tian1 · Junhai Han1,21 School of Life Science and Technology, The Key Laboratory of Developmental Genes and Human Disease, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
2 Co-innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong 226000, China
Abstract
Sleep, an essential and evolutionarily conserved behavior, is regulated by numerous neurotransmitter systems. In mammals, glutamate serves as the wake-promoting signaling agent, whereas in Drosophila, it functions as the sleep-promoting signal. However, the precise molecular and cellular mechanisms through which glutamate promotes sleep remain elusive. Our study reveals that disruption of glutamate signaling significantly diminishes nocturnal sleep, and a neural cell-specific knockdown of the glutamate-gated chloride channel (GluClα) markedly reduces nocturnal sleep. We identified two pairs of neurons in the ventral nerve cord (VNC) that receive glutamate signaling input, and the GluClα derived from these neurons is crucial for sleep promotion. Furthermore, we demonstrated that GluClα mediates the glutamate-gated inhibitory input to these VNC neurons, thereby promoting sleep. Our findings elucidate that GluClα enhances nocturnal sleep by mediating the glutamate-gated inhibitory input to two pairs of VNC neurons, providing insights into the mechanism of sleep promotion in Drosophila.
Keywords
Sleep; Neural circuit; Glutamate-gated chloride channel; Drosophila; Ventral nerve cord; Neural activity
