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H1N1 influenza virus induces narcolepsy-like sleep disruption and targets sleep–wake regulatory neurons in mice

2015; National Academy of Sciences; Volume: 113; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1073/pnas.1521463112

1091-6490

Chiara Tesoriero, Alina Codita, Mingdong Zhang, Andrij Cherninsky, Håkan Karlsson, Gigliola Grassi-Zucconi, Giuseppe Bertini, Tibor Harkany, Karl Ljungberg, Peter Liljeström, Tomas Hökfelt, Marina Bentivoglio, Krister Kristensson,

Sleep and related disorders

Significance Influenza A virus infections are risk factors for narcolepsy, a disease in which autoimmunity has been implicated. We tested experimentally whether influenza virus infections could be causally related to narcolepsy. We found that mice infected with a H1N1 influenza A virus strain developed over time sleep–wake changes described in murine models of narcolepsy and narcolepsy patients. In the brain, the virus infected orexin/hypocretin-producing neurons, which are destroyed in human narcolepsy, and other cells in the distributed sleep–wake-regulating neuronal network. The findings, obtained in mice lacking an adaptive autoimmune response, thus provide new avenues for research on infection-related mechanisms in narcolepsy.