The “Sleep-duration” Gene
Dr. Maggie Pearce explains the discovery and promise of a recent journal article by Allebrandt et al. According to Allebrandt et al. and their research on the ABCC9 gene in Drosophila (fruit flies), this gene is related how much sleep we need per night. Although this is a very interesting discovery, how can we be sure that the SNP in the ABCC9 gene actually causes the 5% difference in sleep duration among people? Can Allebrandt et al. declare that ABCC9 really is the cause of difference in human sleep patterns, if their experiments were done in Drosophila or does this call for more experimentation and investigation? If you could design an experiment to test this gene’s impact on sleep duration, how would it be different that Allebrandt et al.?
Dr. Pearce’s Article: http://www.thetech.org/genetics/news.php?id=149
In another article by the BBC, expert Neil Stanley said that there are many genes associated to sleep patterns. He also said, "It's interesting to know about these genes, but in a way our genes are an irrelevance unless you were actually to obey them - but none of us do that." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15999489)
This seems to contradict the last paragraph of Dr. Maggie Pearce’s article that you read. Do you agree more with Dr. Pearce or Neil Stanley? Why?
