Tequila, the Serine Protease, Is Involved in Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation in Drosophila

Sleep is a vital physiological phenomenon observed among almost all organisms. Although its exact purpose remains elusive, sleep has been linked to memory consolidation. In our present study, we investigated the role of sleep quality on sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Previous studies have shown that tequila, a serine protease, affects long-term memory (LTM) consolidation in flies. In the present study, we identified that the hypomorphic mutation in the tequila gene (tequila^f01792 ) leads to increased daytime sleep fragmentation at a very early age in male flies. Intrigued by this observation, we delved into further understanding the role of tequila in sleep-dependent memory consolidation by manipulating sleep duration using pharmacological methods such as GABA-A agonist. Inducing sleep using GABA-A agonist resulted in improved sleep during the day. This further led to a significant improvement in the LTM of these flies when compared with the vehicle-treated flies. In conclusion, daytime-dependent sleep fragmentation is possibly one of the reasons behind the LTM deficit observed in tequila^f01792 flies. Furthermore, we observed that these flies had disturbed sleep only during the daytime, whereas in the night the flies had increased sleep duration. The increased sleep fragmentation during the daytime possibly leads to memory impairment and rescuing sleep fragmentation partially rescues memory consolidation. These outcomes suggest that the tequila gene is involved in sleep-dependent memory consolidation.