Sleep, Immunity, and Stress: Novel Insights From Drosophila

Abstract One of the proposed functions of sleep is to maintain a robust immune response. Although early investigators had proposed a link between the sleep homeostatic and immune systems, evidence supporting this hypothesis did not emerge until the mid-20th century with the discovery of a sleep-promoting substance of bacterial origin. This chapter briefly outlines the history of sleep research that led up to this finding and the subsequent studies in mammalian species that led to an understanding of how activation of the immune response signals for sleep. However, how sleep reciprocally influences immune function has been more difficult to discern. The characterization of sleep in the Drosophila genetic model has not only facilitated studies that have provided evidence for a beneficial role of sleep in survival of infection but also enabled the discovery of novel molecular components that contribute to this process.