Nature Communications (May 2019)

D-Serine made by serine racemase in Drosophila intestine plays a physiological role in sleep

  • Xihuimin Dai,
  • Enxing Zhou,
  • Wei Yang,
  • Xiaohui Zhang,
  • Wenxia Zhang,
  • Yi Rao

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09544-9
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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The physiological function of endogenous D-serine remains a mystery. Here the authors show that endogenous D-serine plays an important role in regulating sleep and that, while the D-serine synthesizing enzyme serine racemase (SR) is expressed both in the nervous system and the intestines, the SR in the intestine is shown to be functionally sufficient for sleep regulation.