DETERMINATION OF PRION PROTEIN (PrP) AND CHANGES IN FERTILITY HORMONES WITH SLEEP DEPRIVATION IN ALBINO RATS
ABSTRACT
Wistar albino rats, numbering thirty five (35), were nurtured in the animal house of University of Nigeria Enugu Campus and used for this work. This work is designed to determine the presence of prion (PrP) in Wistar albino rats and the possible changes that sleep deprivation can cause in PrP and fertility hormones. Twenty four (24) of the animals (15 females 9 males) were successfully sleep-deprived for 14 days while 11 were not deprived of sleep. The non-sleep deprived rats were used as a control group in addition to PrPc commercial control, for the prion protein determination. The body weights of the rats were obtained before and after sleep deprivation. Serum samples were collected before and after sleep deprivation for the fertility hormone assay while brain tissues were extracted from each sleep deprived and non-sleep deprived rat after 14 days for prion protein determination and histological studies. Single platform sleep deprivation technique was used for sleep deprivation, ocular venipuncture for blood collection, euthanization for sacrificing the rats and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay method for both hormone assay and prion protein determination respectively. Part of the brain tissues were prepared histologically (sectioning and staining) using congo-red staining technique for possible sleep deprivation induced morphological changes. The presence of PrP as determined, was confirmed by comparison of the values of the two control groups and test samples while a significant increase (p < 0.05) in PrP concentration after sleep deprivation was observed when compared with non sleep deprived group of albino rats. Sex hormones such as testosterone and oestradiol, decreased significantly (p < 0.05). The concentrations of prolactin and thyroid stimulating hormone and the body weight of the rats also showed a significant decrease (p < 0.05) after sleep deprivation compared with the normal control rats. The concentrations of follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone had no significant (p > 0.05) changes after sleep deprivation when compared with control group of albino rats.
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