Molecular Insights and Multi-Omics in Sleep Disorders

Dear Colleagues,

Sleep disorders are very common conditions affecting billions of people around the world throughout their lifespans that manifest as heterogeneous phenotypes across gender and ethnic backgrounds. When the quality and/or amount of sleep is affected, adverse consequences occur with both short-term and long-term implications. Examples of highly prevalent sleep disorders include, among others, sleep disordered breathing (e.g., obstructive and central sleep apnea syndromes), insomnia, hypersomnia, circadian rhythm disorders, and parasomnias. Sleep disorders result in numerous morbidities, including metabolic, cardiovascular, cognitive, behavioral and mood perturbations, which can further exacerbate the adverse outcomes and result in increased mortality.

Considering that sleep serves as a life-sustaining function and that it also embodies one of the pillars of health and wellness, it should not be surprising that a great deal of pathophysiological processes affecting virtually every system in the body may in turn affect sleep quality and quantity. Conversely, the presence of sleep disorders will entail an increased risk for the emergence of associated morbidities. As such, unraveling the cellular and molecular mechanisms that are dysregulated in the sleep-function dyad of interest is paramount to understand the causes and consequences of sleep disorders and to develop diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, particularly in the era of precision medicine. Over the last three decades, there has been a continuous growth of research studies applying advanced techniques towards this goal. The application of highly sensitive molecular techniques, such as qPCR, flow cytometry, and spectrometry, have provided high resolution mapping of molecular mechanisms and biochemical pathways affected by sleep and circadian processes, and have also uncovered similar processes related to specific sleep disorders and their associated morbidities. Furthermore, the development of large-scale high-throughput methodologies has enabled the parallel analysis of thousands of variations at genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, epigenomic, microbiomic, and metabolomic levels. The development and application of such “omic” technologies have opened the way for a new and burgeoning field in sleep-related research and has generated large amounts of data while uncovering exciting and novel insights into the etiology of sleep disorders. Notwithstanding, these different molecular layers interact in a complex and organized manner and such a large number of data need to be consolidated and interpreted together to provide the most comprehensive picture of the mechanisms being recruited and involved in both normal and disease states as related to sleep and circadian rhythms. The integration of such large and complex datasets requires the application of advanced bioinformatic approaches, many of which are being developed.

This Special Issue is dedicated to highlighting the most recent advances in molecular research on sleep disorders, from studies focused on single molecules and pathways to large, integrative, multi-omic analyses. As such, we invite the submission of manuscripts encompassing any studies that are focused on sleep and circadian biology that employ omic or molecular approaches to increase our understanding of perturbations in sleep and biological clocks and the mechanism implicated in the attendant consequences of such perturbations.

Prof. Dr. David Gozal
Prof. Dr. Sina A. Gharib
Dr. Rene Cortese
Guest Editors

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