Phosphate Fight Night

Is the key to better sleep… Enzyme fight club?!?

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.

In tonight’s main event: Kinase vs Phosphatase!

Kinases add specific molecules to other proteins, while phosphatases undo the work of the kinases. The activity balance of these proteins can determine just how long your sleep lasts.

Hiroki Ueda and team at RIKEN Institute looked deeper.

After increasing the activity of one phosphatase, mice slept up to SEVENTEEN hours a day! Meanwhile, mice with an artificially active kinase stayed awake for THIRTEEN hours.

How long and well you sleep is determined by the balance of these enzymes in your brain at night! Therefore, improper sleep can lead to long-lasting changes in protein activity and vice versa.

Now that’s literally some knock-out science!


Reference: Wang, Y., Cao, S., Tone, D., Fujishima, H., Yamada, R. G., Ohno, R., Shi, S., Matsuzawa, K., Yada, S., Kaneko, M., Sakamoto, H., Onishi, T., Ukai-Tadenuma, M., Ukai, H., Hanashima, C., Hirose, K., Kiyonari, H., Sumiyama, K., Ode, K. L., & Ueda, H. R. (2024). Postsynaptic competition between calcineurin and PKA regulates mammalian sleep–wake cycles. Nature, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08132-2